Following years of tests, trials and a commercial launch in Europe, Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) has announced it will commercially deploy 100Gbit/s optical transport connections in the U.S. within the coming weeks. (See Verizon Announces 100G in US, Verizon Deploys 100G Ethernet in Europe and Verizon Switches On 100G in Europe.)

Using equipment from Ciena Corp. (NYSE: CIEN) (coherent optical transport) and Juniper Networks Inc. (NYSE: JNPR) (core routers), the same supplier combo as in Europe, Verizon will light up Chicago to New York, Sacramento to Los Angeles and Minneapolis to Kansas City.

"Advancing to 100G is a significant step in strengthening our global IP network to handle the bandwidth demands of our customers -- whether it's large enterprises or the average consumer," noted Ihab Tarazi, the operator's VP of network planning, in the official news announcement. "Besides greater scalability and network efficiencies, we also expect 100G deployment to improve latency on a route-by-route basis."

Verizon has long been committed to 100Gbit/s technologies, regarding it as "the new standard -- the new 10Gbit/s" (see video below), and has been waiting for the various network elements to become available at price points that suit its business plan.

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Why this matters
This is an indication that true 100Gbit/s technology is not only ready to deploy in commercial networks but that systems prices have reached an inflection point. Verizon is one of the world's leading carrier supporters of the new generation of backbone transport technologies and this move will send a positive signal to other operators that the market is ready to support an acceleration in deployments.

So now the question for the Verizon team is -- what's next? (See Planning for 100G & Beyond.)

For more
The 100 Gbit/s sector, and beyond, has been white hot in 2011:

— Ray Le Maistre, International Managing Editor, Light Reading

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