Ekinops, a Lannion, France, -based supplier of next-generation optical networking equipment, has can boast that it has been chosen by Orange to upgrade selected routes on its international long-haul network to 100G capacity.
Starting in the second half of 2016, Orange plans to deploy the Ekinops 360 platform on segments of its terrestrial high-speed optical network, which consists of 18,000km of fibre in France and internationally (Europe, US, and Singapore).
The French telecom operator gave Ekinops product a strong endorsement. Jean-Luc Vuillemin, senior vice president international networks, infrastructures and services at Orange, said: ‘This Ekinops 100G solution, powerful and simple to set up, meets very well our challenges of increasing our high-capacity routes, which we want fast and flexible.’
After a laboratory test period and further field tests, Orange has validated the Ekinops product, showing that it can be deployed quickly and is quite easy to manage, operate, and integrate into existing networks, thanks to its interoperability with other equipment on the market. Ekinops has experience as a supplier of ‘alien wavelength’ technology, which allows its transponders and muxponders to work with the multiplexers and amplifiers from other optical suppliers.
Didier Brédy, chief executive officer of Ekinops, said: ‘We are very proud to have earned Orange's trust for this strategic application with massive potential and to offer an innovative solution to one of the largest carriers. This validates that our strategy and Ekinops’ products are in line with the requirements of Tier 1 service providers.’
Ekinops 360 platform addresses metro, regional, and long-haul applications in a single, highly integrated and compact chassis. The platform relies on the programmable Ekinops T-Chip (Transport-on-a-Chip) architecture to enable fast, flexible and cost-effective delivery of new services for high-speed, high-capacity transport. Using the Ekinops 360 carrier-grade system, operators can simply increase capacity of their networks using a variety of protocols and formats – including CWDM, DWDM, Ethernet, ESCON, Fibre Channel, SONET/SDH, and uncompressed video (HD-SDI, SD-SDI, ASI).