Meriton, Vitesse Semiconductor Team Up on Metro Optical Network

OTTAWA, Ontario, Nov. 21 -- Meriton Networks Inc. and Vitesse Semiconductor Corp. have formed an alliance in which Meriton will employ Vitesse's high-speed asynchronous switch fabric and clock and data recovery (CDR) devices, as well as other components. The companies will collaborate to build a product that offers transparency (bit-rate and protocol independence) with all the networking benefits of an electrical fabric for wavelength services.

Alain Brazeau, Meriton Networks vice president of research and development, said, "Through our collaboration with Vitesse, we are developing a new class of equipment -- a transparent electrical switch for the metro. Tier One carriers are excited to hear they can get the best of both worlds: optical transparency with electrical networking benefits, such as performance monitoring and signal reshaping, retiming and regeneration."