By Brad Reese, Network World |

Live Nortel 100G network trial awaits verdict this week by Comcast and IETF engineers

More than 1,200 of the world’s top Internet engineers are expected to attend this week's IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) meeting hosted in Philadelphia, PA by Comcast.

Nortel OME 6500 shelf with the 100G card in it, this is the one with the Nortel sticker on it

During the week long meeting, Comcast’s network trial will be the first time that real traffic is run over a 100G wavelength on an existing Comcast network that is also carrying live 10G and 40G links. The trial will run in parallel over the same optical infrastructure that supports a combination of high definition or HD video, Internet and voice traffic on Comcast’s 40G national backbone network. Nortel’s 100G solution, based on the Nortel 40G/100G Adaptive Optical Engine, is designed to operate with comparable performance to today’s networks, enabling operators to dramatically increase capacity.

"Testing an interoperable multi-vendor 100G solution will help provide us with important information about how new solutions will support a next generation of high-bandwidth services for the digital generation of consumers," said John Schanz - Executive Vice President of National Engineering and Technology Operations for Comcast Cable. "As we continue to expand our cross-platform video, voice and data services, we need these types of innovative technologies from vendors like Nortel to support the rapid growth of new applications and services that run over our network."

"Comcast is testing the very future of networking with this 100G network trial," said Philippe Morin - President of Metro Ethernet Networks for Nortel. "We can only imagine what new innovations may be sparked by the capabilities made possible with this technology." "Nortel has developed the most cost-effective 40G solution and is at the vanguard of delivering tomorrow’s 100G networks." "This test by Comcast is a first step in the broader adoption of 100G." "Built on Nortel’s 40G/100G Adaptive Optical Engine, the 100G solution requires no expensive network reengineering as it can use existing network elements, including in-ground fiber." "More importantly, it sets the stage for the coming era of hyperconnectivity, where every device that should connect to the network will connect to the network."

"Growing traffic patterns with the infusion of video are causing bandwidth constraints in carrier networks worldwide," said Michael Howard - Principal Analyst at Infonetics Research. "This trend has the potential to starve new, innovative Internet-based websites, applications, and services of the bandwidth they need, as well as create problems for users accessing real-time content." "Carriers recognize this situation and are adding network capacity and also getting in position to add capacity more rapidly."

The 100G trial will run for the week of March 9th spanning the Comcast infrastructure from Philadelphia, PA to McLean, VA traversing Comcast’s metro and long-haul fibers. More than 1,200 of the world’s top Internet engineers attending the IETF meeting are expected to make use of this high-speed network to access the Internet. The 100G solution runs over Comcast’s existing fiber network. The test network is comprised of Comcast’s existing Common Photonic Layer DWDM solution with 50GHz enhanced Reconfigurable Optical Add/Drop Multiplexer (eROADM) and photonic components, augmented with prototype 100G interfaces installed in Nortel’s Optical Multiservice Edge 6500. The 100G cards utilize Nortel’s 40G/100G Adaptive Optical Engine, with integrated dispersion compensation and dual-polarization Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) modulation, the same technology used in Nortel’s present 40G solution.

Related Story:

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If the Nortel network trial goes well, when and how rapidly do YOU think MSO's will start to roll out 100G?

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Brad Reese is research manager at BradReese.Com, advancing the careers of 600,000-plus certified individuals in the growing Cisco Career Certification Program.