SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 18 -- The advantages of coarse wavelength division multiplexing (CWDM) technology will be the topic of Richard Lauder, CTO and co-founder of RBN Inc., at the 2004 annual Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition (OFC), to be held Feb. 22-27 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. RBN makes optical transport and switching products for the access and metro markets; the company is based in San Francisco and has research and development offices in Sydney, Australia. "CWDM is poised for significant growth in demand during 2004," according to Lauder. "Its ubiquitous adoption will be aided in part by the recent standardization of optical interfaces for CWDM by the ITU-T, G.695." RBN is chief editor of G.695 and has been instrumental in leading the definition of the standard. Lauder said, "Carriers today need to be responsive to customer demand and are searching for low-risk strategies that will allow them to build out optical transport infrastructure on demand. They need to be aligning capex with revenues. CWDM is an appropriate solution for the current recovering market. It's all about having just enough capacity, just in time." The RBNi GigaEdge 8200 and RBNi GigaRegen 8100 are the industry benchmark for CWDM. First launched in mid-2002, the products are deployed in numerous live systems in North America and Asia Pacific. Lauder will speak at two workshops: "Technology and Economics for Coarse Wavelength Multiplexing," Feb. 22 at 1 p.m., and "Optimization of Fibers for Network Applications," Feb. 23 at 1 p.m. He will describe the "value proposition that CWDM presents to carriers" and how CWDM addresses the need for low-cost optical transport systems that are small, simple and flexible. For more information, visit: www.rbni.com