French-US vendor Alcatel-Lucent has been enlisted by Verizon Communications to overhaul its ultra-longhaul network. Alca-Lu’s 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS) will be used for the carrier’s ultra-longhaul, core optical network; the converged wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM)/optical transport network (OTN)/packet-based platform will assist with Verizon’s transition to an optical converged infrastructure. In addition, the new hardware will help Verizon to quickly adjust wavelength connections, automate tasks on a wide scale and identify and route around faults in its fibre infrastructure. Further, Alca-Lu claims that its system can help operators such as Verizon to maintain costs by allowing them to scale wavelengths from 100Gbps to 200Gbps and beyond, without having to change existing equipment.
As previously reported by TeleGeography’s CommsUpdate, earlier this month Verizon confirmed that it intends to modernise its metropolitan optical network using scalable, packet-optimised transport solutions from domestic vendors Ciena and Cisco.
