CAMBRIDGE, U.K. -- Polatis Ltd, the fibre optic switch developer, today announced first performance details of a 64 port all-optical switch demonstrator at the OFC2001, conference, Anaheim, California 19th,March.

Chief executive, Andrew Dames, stated " Our 64x64 all-optical switch card is the first demonstrator of a product range of scalable all-optical switches. What we find particularly exciting is that the intrinsically low insertion loss of these units will enable network service providers to roll out new levels of 'point & click' provisioning and protection for the next generation of intelligent optical mesh networks. This will assist the opening up of new market opportunities based on VPN's and bandwidth on demand. It's an extremely exciting time."

The Polatis switch offers ‘any-to-any’ optical connectivity between all input ports and all output ports. The proprietary 3D switch core that uniquely characterises the Polatis design is based on innovative direct beam switching technology. Switching times are in the millisecond regime, for circuit provisioning applications. This highly scalable approach enables high port count switches to be fabricated with very low, path independent insertion loss and cross talk. This is particularly beneficial for network service providers as any unnecessary signal loss is extremely costly.

http://www.polatis.com