PowerNet Global Acquires Aleron
New broadband unit will provide PowerNet customers with high-speed Internet access services. (more)

StockerYale Buys Ciena Unit
The Salem, N.H., optical fiber maker and Linthicum, Md., networker agree to terms on a business division and a 3-year supply pact. (more)

Corvis Shareholders Approve Dorsal Deal
Terrestrial optical networking firm's all-stock acquisition of undersea optical network maker now valued at $50 million. (more)

Advanced Switching Settles With Qwest
Telecom equipment maker says deal clears way for company's liquidation. (more)

Venture Capital News

Optical Solutions Secures $22M
Fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) system provider Optical Solutions Inc. of Minneapolis said it has raised over $22 million in a new round of equity financing. The Sprout Group and Coral Ventures led the financing, which also includes new investor H.I.G. Ventures, and participating investors Boston Millennia Partners, Menlo Ventures, and St. Paul Venture Capital. This round -- the Series F round, according to VentureWire -- brings the company's total funding to $126 million. The new funding will be to used for working capital expansion to support growing customer demand for the FiberPath 400 FTTH system.

Product News

Cisco's Mid-Range Routers
Cisco extends its 7200, 7300, 7400, 7500, and 7600 series of routers with multiservice enhancements designed to help service providers deploy next-generation services including IPv6, VPNs, and advanced QoS. (more)

Cisco Crafts Router with IP, Fibre Channel While Cisco has long developing and touting IP-based storage solutions, the firm is not averse to adding a little Fibre channel flavor. (more)

Fujitsu Launches New Metro DWDM Products
Fujitsu Network Communications, Inc. has launched two new products it claims will significantly reduce the strain on existing carrier network fiber facilities -- the FLASHWAVE 7410 and FLASHWAVE 7420 Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) platforms. These two new metro DWDM solutions can reduce infrastructure costs through capital and operational savings and simplification and dramatically increase bandwidth at a fraction of the cost and time of laying new fiber cable-allowing carriers to focus on provisioning profitable new services and addressing the problems of fiber exhaust in a fast and cost-effective manner, officials said. The FLASHWAVE 7420 DWDM platform is specifically optimized for metropolitan service providers requiring a flexible, cost-effective system that will multiplex, transport and switch high-speed voice, video, data, and storage applications. The FLASHWAVE 7410 DWDM system is a managed wavelength access platform specifically optimized for service providers requiring a network-edge or premises system for delivering voice, data and high-speed storage applications.

CyOptics Intros Ultra-High Performance 10Gbps Laser
CyOptics Inc., a developer of Indium Phosphide (InP) based active optical components, announced availability of its Hybrid 10Gbps Electro-Absorption Modulator with DFB Laser (Hybrid EML). Building on the company's platform of high-performance Indium Phosphide devices, the Hybrid EML combines two discrete components: CyOptics industry-leading electro-absorption modulator (EAM), and a high power laser, in one compact, 7 pin butterfly package. CyOptics Hybrid EML can transmit over 80-120km of standard SMF28 fiber without dispersion compensation and with under 2dB dispersion penalty. In an amplified and compensated link it can transmit to distances of 500km and beyond.

Other News

Metro Ethernet Forum Reaches "Critical Mass"
The Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) this week said it has made "significant progress" at its second quarter membership meeting, held last month in New Orleans, LA. In addition, the organization has grown to 77 member companies, representing leading service providers, major incumbent local exchange carriers, top network equipment vendors and other prominent networking companies.

At the quarterly membership meeting, the Metro Ethernet Protection Requirements 2.0 document, one of several document drafts on which the Forum made significant progress, reached the straw ballot stage, the first MEF document to reach this milestone. In addition, Ethernet Services Definition reached the draft stage.

With the mission of accelerating the adoption optical Ethernet in metro networks worldwide, the MEF gathered in New Orleans to demonstrate progress and reach consensus on documents from the following four areas: Protocol and Transport, Services, Architecture and Management. As a result, and in addition to the one straw ballot milestone, 10 documents have been moved to draft status.

Telecoms Team to Improve Provisining and Management of GigE Services
Cisco Systems, Daleen Technologies, Emperative, Extreme Networks, LINMOR Technologies, Quallaby, Satyam Computer Services, and Sun Microsystems Join Forces with British Telecom and France Telecom to demonstrate optical Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) services. Members of the TM Forum (TMF) have unveiled the "Optical Gigabit Ethernet Management" Catalyst project at the TeleManagement World conference held in Nice, France to address many of today's complicated customer demands facing service providers, from delivering flexible tiered service plans and bandwidth on demand to guaranteeing uninterrupted service and Quality of Service (QoS).

In response to the growing interest from incumbent public telecommunications service providers, the Catalyst team focused the project on issues specific to delivering and billing for Gigabit Ethernet services over SONET/SDH, an optical infrastructure technology widely deployed and adopted by established incumbent and global carriers. The Catalyst team focused its project here because of the growing demand for Ethernet-over-SONET/SDH solutions from some of the world's largest telecommunications service providers.