Nortel: Community - Blogs - Nortel Buzzboard: Who said timing is everything?

Early yesterday morning while we were all still waiting to hear news on the Nortel Enterprise front, the Optical team issued two press releases highlighting optical deployments with customers in Europe. The first was the announcement of Virgin Media as our first public 40G Submarine Networking customer. The second was a joint deployment with service provider Sunrise of what is believed to be the first national network of its kind -- providing Swiss Broadcasting Corp (SRG) with a pure optical network that enables uncompressed HD video to be transmitted between studios and from outside broadcast vans to studios in real time.

Within two hours of this news hitting the wires, the weekend suspense of Nortel's Enterprise auction ended with the announcement that Avaya was the winning bidder -- which of course made this optical news the "other news" of the day.

But that doesn't mean it wasn't interesting stuff. On the Virgin Media side, their 40G submarine deployment upgrades an existing north and south 10G optical fiber cable between the UK and Ireland underneath the Irish Sea, linking Lytham St. Annes on the west coast of the UK to Dublin and covering approximately 238 kilometers fully "unrepeatered". That "unrepeatered" part means significant cost savings because there is no need for underwater equipment. While we've previously announced two groundbreaking 40G Submarine trials (Southern Cross at 8,000km and Reliance at 12,000km), Virgin Media is our first public customer. The network uses the Nortel OME 6500 along with amplification equipment from MPB Communications, our partner for unrepeatered 40G submarine deployments.

The optical network for SRG was built with Sunrise over the span of 15 months, and connects SRG's studios to 35 football and ice hockey stadiums across the country. On-site broadcast vans can then connect directly to the optical network, sending uncompressed live HD video back to SRG's studios. The network just went live this month, and the first use of the network for a live event was for the September 5th World Cup qualification match between Switzerland and Greece from Basel St. Jakobspark Stadium (in which the locals won 2-0).

The SRG network was build using the Nortel Optical Metro 5000 series and Nortel CPL. The key to enabling the network is a new line card for the OM 5000 that enables the transport and synchronization of Standard Definition (SDI), High Definition HD-SDI and 3G SDI (DCI) video formats.

I don't know why Nortel wants to sell this section. This is the only hope that Nortel can re-rise. MEN is really the trend of IT/Telecom. Customers need this 40G/100G bandwidth to support quick and real-time communication. And I believe that investor also recognize this technology. So, to sell all the other department for debt and keep this one for Nortel is the best choice. Also, I don't why Nortel is just box up itself as the telecom supplier. It's better to think about future and depend on Nortel's experience to dig out some 0 risk and high benefit field. For example, to be a centre telecom standard test supplier, or to move to IP based new media....

Sep 26, 2009 10:18 PM by tianda

It's time for Nortel to develop the open telecom platform for customers, but not just afford the equipment or a suit of project.

In future, all the standards are open and base on low-cost IP/TCP techology. If Nortel still want to stand up, I think we should select low-cost and high-benefit open project to do.

In fact, Nortel's problem is the problem of choosing unsuitable people in high level position. The most talent employee has no chance to take more important position at relating short time. We need to follow the process and spend a lot of time to get higher position. In this world, who has quick feedback from industry will get to top position.

Sep 26, 2009 10:34 PM by tianda

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