Broadwing nearing completion of all-optical net

Austin, Texas - Broadwing Communications has nearly completed its all-optical nationwide network, which the firm expects will offer users fast provisioning intervals and lower-cost services.

The service provider announced last week that its second fiber-optic ring is up and running. It spans cities in the central states including Denver, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City and Kansas City, Mo. The three main rings in the core of its network will total 18,500 route fiber miles when complete.

Broadwing is one of many national service providers including AT&T, Qwest Communications and WorldCom that is testing and deploying optical net gear.

Broadwing's final optical ring, spanning states in the West, will be operational by the end of the month, says Dale Richardson, director of transmission systems engineering. The eastern ring was finished earlier this month.

The firm deployed four Corvis MultiWave Core Director optical switches in its network to support a meshed architecture, Richardson says. The switch supports link restoration on the optical rings within 50 milliseconds and dynamic bandwidth allocation for partial wavelength services from 50M bit/sec up to 10G bit/sec.

At each optical switch, Broadwing has set up a minimum of three fiber routes to support what's called mesh restoration. It is using Cienna's optical digital cross-connect to support mesh restoration. Broadwing is also using long-haul dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM) throughout its network, which Richardson says offers more cost efficiencies. Typical DWDM systems need electrical regeneration every 300 to 500 kilometers. Long-haul DWDM requires electrical regeneration every 3,200 to 4,000 kilometers.

"Provisioning additional capacity across the network takes days instead of months," Richardson says.

Contact Senior Editor Denise Pappalardo

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