Gray-Market Optics Get a Brand NameGray-Market Optics Get a Brand Name

Curvature announced Tuesday that it's now selling its own line of optics compatible with equipment from Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) and others.

The company is showing off the modules -- pluggable optical transceivers in form factors such as SFP and XFP -- at Interop in New York this week.

Why this matters
Cisco charges a premium for optical modules that, from a hardware perspective, are quite ordinary, purchased from module makers such as Finisar Corp. (Nasdaq: FNSR) and Oclaro Inc. (Nasdaq: OCLR). NHR had already been offering an alternative by buying the same modules and tweaking the software to be Cisco-compatible.

Now, NHR is out guns-blazing with modules under its own name. And although we're picking on Cisco here, NHR notes the modules also work in gear from other vendors, including Brocade Communications Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: BRCD), Dell Technologies (Nasdaq: DELL) (Force10), Extreme Networks Inc. (Nasdaq: EXTR) and Juniper Networks Inc. (NYSE: JNPR). NHR claims its prices run 70 to 90 percent lower than the OEMs'.

In March, NHR struck a deal with independent module vendor Menara Networks . It seems likely that Menara, which was founded with the goal of building 10Gbit/s modules supporting Optical Transport Network (OTN), could be the foundation for any higher-end devices NHR is offering.

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