March 20, 2001

Xtera's eXpander demonstration shows long-haul distances and full channel capacity can be achieved using discrete Raman amplification

Allen, Texas, March 20, 2001 – Xtera Communications Inc. (www.xtera.com), the optical networking company that is creating groundbreaking technologies for long-haul and ultra-long-haul optical networks, today announces S-band DWDM transmission at 10.7 Gb/s over 10 spans of 85 km standard single mode fiber using a cascade of dispersion-compensating discrete Raman amplifiers with it's newly introduced eXpander product. The results of the eXpander demonstration were made available in a post-deadline, late-breaking-news session of the Optical Fiber Conference.

This transmission was accomplished using the discrete Raman amplification of Xtera's eXpander System Integral without electrical regeneration or the aid of any forward error correction scheme. This first of its kind experiment was a technological breakthrough using commercially available discrete Raman amplification, while the post-deadline selection demonstrates its importance to the optical industry.

This evolutionary application of Raman amplifier technology carried 20 channels of 10 Gbps using amplifiers with an output power of 14 dBm. Although out of band forward error correction was not utilized in this experiment, a transmission rate of 10.7 Gbps was used to simulate any negative effect at operating at this higher bit rate. The amplifiers used are capable of much higher output powers and coupled with the use of FEC translates to an optical signal to noise ratio that would be more than sufficient to support 80 channels at 10 Gbps in the S-band at this same distance.

"The result of this 20 channel demonstration clearly confirms the reality of 80 channel long haul transmission in the S-band today," according to Xtera Vice President of Photonic Systems and paper co-author, Herve Fevrier. "The basis of this experiment was to meet our customer requirement of 10 spans of 25 dB. We are confident that when the eXpander is used in our partners' host network element the performance will exceed that which we have shown here today."
The paper, authored by Xtera photonic team members, Andrej Puc, Senior Optical Systems Engineer, Michel Chbat, Director of Systems Engineering, and Herve Fevrier, Vice President of Photonic Systems, will be presented by Dr. Chbat on Thursday, March 22, in Anaheim at the OFC 2001 Post-deadline Presentations. It will be published in the OFC 2001 Postdeadline Paper Digest, which will be available for conference attendees.

Xtera launched their first product, the eXpander System Integral at OFC 2001. The Xtera eXpander is the first in a series of System Integrals, turnkey subsystems that will enable telecom equipment manufacturers to speed their time to market with new features on systems they currently sell to carriers. These enhancements help system vendors become more responsive to the dynamic requirements and cost objectives now prevalent in today's service provider's network.

About Xtera Communications

Xtera Communications specializes in network infrastructure that delivers the highest capacity, reach and density. Our long-haul, Submarine, Metro and WAN technologies together with our deployment expertise drive customer success and long term value.

Xtera offers an extensive portfolio of Optical Transport solutions for long-haul, regional, metropolitan and sub-sea networks, and WAN Traffic Management solutions for both enterprise and telecom companies.  

With deployments in four continents, Xtera’s Optical Transport portfolio helps service providers worldwide reach new markets via new deployments, and extends the life of their existing network assets with cost-effective upgrades. Xtera's innovative Traffic Management solutions offer customers the best price/performance in network optimization.

Xtera delivers compelling advantage to its customers by maximizing network capacity, reach and value.

For more information, please visit www.xtera.com