NXTcomm bears witness to ROADM's major role in broadband video distribution
I type: ROADM.
You think: ah, short for "Road Map."
That may well be the case, but not at NXTcomm here in Chicago.
One of the major themes of this major telecom industry event is greatly (I am going to make up a word here) efficientized video delivery by use of a reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer.
Go over those letters. Yes, ROADM.
ROADM is a typ of optical add-drop multiplexer that enables carriers to remotely switch traffic at what is called the wavelength layer. This capability permits individual wavelengths- each carrying data channels- to be added or dropped from a transition without converting each signal to electronic signals and back again to optical ones.
The cool thing with such flexibility is that bandwidth assignments need not all be set in stone when a carrier's distribution is initially configured. Instead, adjustments can remotely be implemented as the demands on the distribution channels increase and reconfig is needed.
That said, a number of ROADM-dependent solutions are being announced at NXTcomm, including Tellabs 7100 Nano OTS (Optical Transport System) and Fujitsu's 40 gigabit a second Flashwave 7500 ROADM.
Always a major presence at NXTcomm, Nortel announced its optical portfolio has been enhanced with new features, including an enhanced PDH gateway capability and an integrated Reconfigurable Optical Add-drop Multiplexer (ROADM) into the Optical Multiservice Edge (OME) 6500 convergence platform as well as a new 2.5G global multi-service platform, called the OME 6130.
Geeky pride from Nortel:
ROADM capability will enable faster add or drop and redirection of optical wavelengths, providing the flexibility and service agility required for metropolitan networks. The integrated photonics capabilities leverage innovative technology from the Common Photonic Layer to benefit operators with proven simplified service turn-up and operations efficiency through automated wavelength performance monitoring and optimization. This will enable providers to capitalize on the high-bandwidth services such as video and multimedia.
Well, I guess we are talking roadmap.