SYSTEMS

RICHARDSON, TX -- Reinforcing a commitment to help carriers recognize additional OPEX savings, add more bandwidth and services to the network, and simplify network operations and control complexity, Fujitsu Network Communications, Inc. today revealed its metro photonic product strategy for the next several years. Fujitsu developed its strategy based upon many years experience delivering reliable, carrier-optimized optical transport solutions and a tremendous amount of carrier feedback about their goals and specific requirements. The result is a complete line of new core-to-premises Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) products now added to the Fujitsu metro product portfolio. "Networks are a complex hybrid of old and new technologies, services and design philosophies," says Doug Saylor, senior vice president of marketing for Fujitsu Network Communications. "At Fujitsu, we believe this same complexity will continue to evolve for quite some time. Today's network must connect to yesterday's network and provide a seamless migration for carriers to continue evolving profitably to tomorrow's network." "The next wave of networks in North America will embrace multiservice provisioning within two overlapping technology spaces--Next-generation Synchronous Optical Networking (SONET) and Photonics, which includes DWDM and Optical Cross-Connects (OXC)," continues Doug Saylor. "To ride this wave, Fujitsu is delivering solutions that allow new network services to be delivered over existing infrastructures. These new products enable new networks to communicate with current networks using existing protocols (and without creating a multitude of isolated networking islands), as well as deliver next generation solutions that dramatically improve network efficiency without adding unnecessary costs. Our metro DWDM strategy hinges on these precepts." Over the next two years, growth in wavelength services will place a strain on existing network capacity and fiber facilities if carriers do not begin preparing today. The Fujitsu DWDM metro strategy comprises access, customer premises, and metro core solutions, which dramatically increase bandwidth at a fraction of the cost and time of laying new fiber cable allowing carriers to focus on provisioning profitable new services and addressing the problems of fiber exhaust in a quick and cost-effective manner. "Today almost all voice and data services are transported over a SONET infrastructure, which provides the scalability, flexibility, manageability and reliability required for large scale carrier networks," says Parker Blackwell, vice president of metro product management and marketing at Fujitsu Network Communications. "Additionally, carriers have invested tremendous time, effort and money in building this infrastructure--well beyond the purchase of SONET platforms. Service Providers, who focus both on delivering the services their customers need at a price they can afford and delivering shareholder value, have to leverage their existing investments in the SONET network by making it more productive. The Fujitsu metro strategy encompasses the delivery of next generation, highly scalable, multiservice platforms that reduce operational and capital expenses exponentially. The Fujitsu strategy centers on the delivery of solutions, not boxes, which are optimized for each of a carriers optical transport applications. Each application has its own unique requirements, and Fujitsu believes, as its customers have confirmed, that they require application optimized solutions rather than a one-size-fits-all product. Fujitsu has optimized its next generation FLASHWAVE(R) 4000 solutions around the specific application segments of a carriers network: the optical network edge, optical access aggregation and grooming and Interoffice Facility (IOF). "Businesses throughout North America are revising their business continuance strategies and as a result, the demand for communications services which support remote Storage Area Networking (SAN) and Local Area Network (LAN) interconnection is increasing. Service providers must respond with services that support protocols such as ESCON, FICON and Fibre Channel--protocols that are not SONET friendly," says Parker Blackwell. "Managed fiber and DWDM solutions are best suited to deliver these solutions cost effectively. Carriers are looking for platforms from trusted, proven suppliers that will enable new incremental revenues profitably. Unfortunately, until now, many of the existing metro DWDM and managed fiber solutions fell short of carrier expectations. We have raised the bar with our new FLASHWAVE 7410 managed optical access platform and our new FLASHWAVE 7420 metro DWDM platform." Available today, the FLASHWAVE 7410 managed-optical access platform is a low cost, carrier-class access device optimized for high-speed voice, data and storage application convergence. The FLASHWAVE 7410 platform offers an effective demarcation point between an enterprise local network and the service provider network. Also available today is the FLASHWAVE 7420 DWDM transport platform, a flexible, cost-effective metro system optimized for multiplexing, transporting and switching high-speed voice, video, data and storage applications. Designed for large wavelength service requirements, the FLASHWAVE 7420 system optimizes existing fiber infrastructures and allows carriers to profitably transport broadband optical services, including business continuance services, over a shared, survivable infrastructure. As the proliferation of wavelength services increases, initially point-to-point and evolving to more and more multi-point configurations, greater strain will be placed on carrier core DWDM networks. These networks will grow in size and complexity, while in parallel, services will be deployed via the existing, expanding SONET infrastructure. Fujitsu, through its optical leadership in both metro and long haul networks, its technical depth via Fujitsu Labs, and dogged determination to deliver what carriers need, will be launching a new solution as part of its metro strategy. To be launched and demonstrated at the upcoming SUPERCOMM 2002 exhibition (Fujitsu Booth # 23946), the FLASHWAVE 7500 platform is a highly-scalable, metro core, DWDM system with transponder transparency and 80-wavelength functionality. The release of the FLASHWAVE 7500 platform will signal the availability of a true next-generation DWDM product. Technology breakthroughs such as OSPPR, variable attenuators, and an all-optical core represent some of its features. All three new metro DWDM platforms are currently undergoing Telcordia(TM) OSMINE certification to ensure their full interoperability with legacy systems as well as emerging Operations Systems. In addition, Fujitsu is developing tools that ease the planning and traffic engineering functions associated with optical networks. For more news and information please visit www.fnc.fujitsu.com.