Polatis Targets Carrier Deployments with High Performance Optical Switch Products

Polatis Targets Carrier Deployments with High Performance Optical Switch Products


Polatis announces expansion of product line at OFC 2008

Boston, MA, and Cambridge, UK – Polatis Inc, a leading supplier of high performance optical switch products, today announced its plans to aggressively target communication service providers with an expanded portfolio of network-ready products at OFC 2008, taking place from February 26th – 28th at the San Diego Convention Centre, California.

“Polatis has established itself as a leader in the production automation, development lab, defense, and video broadcast markets,” states Dr. Aaron Bent, Polatis VP of Sales & Marketing. “This OFC marks a shift in emphasis at Polatis, as we address the growing need for optical-layer switching in service provider networks. At this point, most tier I and many tier 2 operators in Asia, Europe, and North America are evaluating and trialing optical switches for some form of service provisioning, protection, or trouble-shooting of networks.

At OFC Polatis will introduce several new products, including a High Speed Switch Module (OSM) designed for OEM integration into optical transport systems, providing sub 10 millisecond switching for fast optical-layer protection and network fail-over. Also on demonstration will be the new Touch Screen Optical Switch Tray (OSD), delivering <1dB insertion loss and now with front panel control for combined local/remote operation by central office personnel.

“Performance and reliability are the number one requirements in many of the core networking applications, and it is these attributes that set Polatis apart,” adds Bent. “Obviously the price points need to meet the economics of the business case, but low cost is not good enough. Lower performance in competing technologies can potentially exclude them from many important applications, such as FTTx. In other situations, such as WSS-based DWDM networks, higher performance components can substantially reduce overall network deployment costs.”

Polatis will also be demonstrating its Wavelength Selective Switch (WSS), an ultra low-loss switching technology aimed at reducing network cost and enabling new architectures in next generation DWDM networks, and its Compact Latching Switch (CLS), for test and monitoring of up to 80 fibers, capable of maintaining connected paths in the absence of power or control communications.

Polatis products deliver industry-leading performance, with many of its products offering less than 1 dB insertion loss, 70 dB return loss, sub 10 millisecond switching speeds, and -60 dB crosstalk. All Polatis products are capable of switching dark fiber and bi-directional traffic, critical for protection switching and testing of fiber networks.