5 Minutes with Roy Rubenstein, Publisher of gazettabyte

Q: Congratulations on today’s launch of gazettabyte. Tell us about your decision to launch this new optical communications website.

Roy Rubenstein (RR): It’s a combination of an ongoing interest in a fascinating industry and my experience of changes taking place in the media.

I have been covering the optical industry as an analyst and journalist for a decade and I find the industry’s business and technology challenges deeply interesting. I have also come to know and value many people in what remains a relatively small industry.

Changes in the trade press, brought on by reducing advertising revenues caused by the rise of the Internet and exacerbated by the downturn, have meant traditional industry trade titles have either closed or have little budget for freelancers.

In July 2009, the UK’s Institute of Physics closed FibreSystems Europe, a magazine I have been writing for since 2003. In that time I worked with three great editors and valued being able to research in-depth articles.

When FibreSystems closed I approached several magazines but had little joy. Either I got no response or the titles had no freelance budgets. I decided to launch gazettabyte. In the age of Twitter and content management systems, everyone is now a publisher: engineers, marketing managers, companies, even freelance journalists.

gazettabyte is only possible, however, due to industry companies agreeing to back the venture, one of them being Finisar. I am grateful to them all.

Q. What are some of the major topics you will focus on first?

RR: To start, components and modules, first in terms of optical integration and then with regard to advances in optical transceivers. Clearly the topics overlap.

Two hot systems’ issues will then follow: architectural changes in the data centre, and high speed transmission issues at 40G, 100Gbps and beyond. The second article will appear prior to OFC 2010.

Q. What major factors do you view as driving the optical communications industry over the next five years?

RR: If I were to list them in order or priority, it is as follows:
• Reducing the cost of bits-per-second-per-kilometer in optical transmission
• How semiconductors is “squeezing the optics out of optical transmission” as an ECOC attendee put it.
• The triumph of optics in short reach interconnects and the rise of silicon photonics
• Manufacturing and the Chinese optical industry: issues such as vertically integrated companies, outsourcing, and the emergence of China with its leading global system vendors Huawei and ZTE as well as transceiver and optical component makers.

Daryl Inniss of Ovum has said how the advent of 40G and 100G marks another industry transition. He wonders whether the latest transition will prove as disruptive as the last one – from 2.5G to 10G back in the late 1990s. This will be answered soon.

If you look at the big trends: advanced modulation schemes are here to stay for high-speed optical transmission, optical access borrowing techniques that until now have been confined to within the network -10G optics, coarse and dense WDM; all are taxing issues that require significant R&D investment.

Then there is the rise of video traffic, mobile data and cloud computing (data centres, high performance computing, optical interconnects down to the CPU) – all core to traditional and ‘new’ service providers’ (Google, Amazon and Yahoo) businesses. Optical communications will play a key role for all these.

How many industries can boast such strong drivers?

150 Years Under The Sea

This week’s blog post was written by Finisar Finance Director, Tom Downey.

A recent summary of undersea cable construction reveals the continued investment in infrastructure for delivering bandwidth via optical fiber. Before looking at recent developments, it is interesting to look back at a bit of undersea cabling history.

Before the late 1990’s, subsea cables carried telegraph and voice traffic. Then the dot-com and telecommunications frenzy created unprecedented construction under the sea as well as on land. In 2001, $13.5 billion was spent. However, with the boom, came the bust; only about $2 billion was spent between 2004 and 2007. In the boom, spending was speculative and thus, very high. However, with the creation of bandwidth, because customers could transport more traffic into the network clouds, they did! Even during the lean cable spending years, demand never slaked, growing at an average compound annual rate of 54 percent in three years from 2002 to 2008. The table below shows compound annual growth rates of lit submarine capacity vs. bandwidth use.

Now, carriers are adding capacity where new demand had soaked up the earlier glut. Spending will be lower because new cables will cover shorter distance, regional runs. With the continued demand, over 25 new submarine cables should enter service in 2009 and 2010 with construction spending over $4 billion.

The continued investment in undersea capacity underscores the modern day story of the optical networking revolution. New applications continue to drive ferocious demand for bandwidth and the migration of the applications from a client’s device into the network. With the demand, component manufacturers continue to face the overarching challenge – successfully meeting the world’s insatiable demand for connectivity and bandwidth.

Sources:
IEEE Spectrum July 2009
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/internet/a-telecom-diet-rich-in-fiber
http://www.atlantic-cable.com/Cables/CableTimeLine/index.htm

Video: Introducing Finisar's EWP 1×2 WSS for Edge Applications

During ECOC 2009, Finisar introduced the Edge Wavelength Processor (EWP) 1×2 Wavelength Selective Switch (WSS). Based on Finisar’s Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCoS) technology, this new platform provides the same flexible programmability and reliability as Finisar’s existing Dynamic Wavelength Processors (DWP), but its small size and low power consumption make it ideal for applications at the network edge. For more details regarding this product, read the press release.

To see the EWP 1×2 for yourself, watch the video.

Video: Finisar WaveShaper S-Series Demonstration

In September 2009 we introduced our WaveShaper™ S-Series for Optical R&D and Test Applications. We took the opportunity to demonstrate these enhanced optical processors at ECOC last month. Based on the powerful LCoS platform, these processors provide advanced arbitrary filter generation and switching capabilities to simplify and increase the precision of optical system development and production test. They are well-suited for telecom equipment and systems manufacturers, R&D laboratories, and universities. To watch WaveShaper in action, click on the link below.

Watch Video!

For more information about this product, please read the press release or send us an email anytime: sales@finisar.com.

Video: 40G Ethernet CFP Transceiver Demonstration

The annual ECOC conference and exhibition was held September 21-23 in Vienna, Austria. Finisar marked its presence this year by showcasing several new technology demonstrations including the industry’s first 40 Gb/s Ethernet CFP transceiver. Something we tried new this year is capturing each of our demos on video directly from the tradeshow floor. If you missed the show, then I am pleased to share with you the video of our 40G Ethernet CFP Transceiver Demonstration.

Watch Video!

Over the next several days, be sure to check back for postings of other Finisar video demonstrations at the show.