Lightchip Demonstrates Remote Wavelength Management at Supercomm

Lightchip demonstrated remote wavelength management in a high-channel count metro DWDM optical network environment during Supercomm 2001 in Atlanta, Georgia. Lightchip's customers have asked the company for this new capability as they deploy next generation networks for service providers.

By enabling remote wavelength management, Lightchip's products deliver distributed network intelligence where carriers need it while providing equipment and administrative savings. The demonstration will feature two Lightchip OWR4010 optical wavelength routers (OWRs) transporting 40 100-GHz ITU spaced channels across 60 km of fiber while being monitored by two Lightchip optical wavelength managers (OWMs) that feed vital wavelength information to four computer locations -- two local, two remote.

"Remote monitoring and management supports today's emerging distributed architectures and frees providers from having to locate wavelength management equipment and personnel at every hut along the network. The network operations center (NOC) can now truly serve as a central command post," said Ian Turner, Lightchip's chief technology officer. "Our customers have been asking for this capability and we are pleased to bring it to them."

Lightchip OWRs perform ultra low-loss multiplexing and demultiplexing of disparate network traffic flows. Lightchip OWMs constantly monitor and feed the real-time health of every individual wavelength -- optical power, optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) and wavelength drift. Wide area network access to the OWM is supported by Telnet and SNMP via TCP/IP. In addition, Lightchip provides an advanced graphical user interface (GUI) which can access multiple OWMs over any TCP/IP network. The result is access to critical network intelligence and routing capabilities that help keep costs down and system flexibility up.