40Gbit/s

40Gbit/s
From time to time, announcements repeat that the 40Gbit/s optical market is still alive. Trials follow trials, and every time performance is improved: in May 2004, transmission was realized on few hundreds kilometers, the transmission over more than 1,200 km, and now transmission was successful on over 3,00km. But behind noise, there were almost the same people involved. On the operator side, only few are considering 40Gbit/s transmission. Fiber overcapacity is not yet totally absorbed (except on some few routes) in long haul market, delaying interest of operators. MCI (and perhaps DT) is the most active operator and involved in almost all announced trials. On the vendor side also, few vendors have industrialized their products. The market is yet limited and could only take off in few years from now. Xtera, Mintera, Alcatel, and few others are the most active. The real new step is to see Juniper and Cisco (using StrataLight technology) integrating OC768 /STM256 interface in their core routers. If they move, the market is expected to be not too far.