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Eircom said on Wednesday that the new system will significantly increase the capacity of its broadband infrastructure in the Dublin, Portlaoise, Limerick, Cork and Waterford regions. In fact, the firm claims that the capacity of a single fibre optic line equipped with the technology will increase by a factor of up to 160.
The technology, to be installed by Siemens, will primarily be used in Eircom's core fibre network, not in the average connections from exchanges to individual homes and small businesses.
The technology to be used is called Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) and here is how it works: DWDM combines and transmits multiple signals simultaneously at different wavelengths on the same piece of fibre, which in effect transforms a single fibre in to numerous "virtual" fibres. This dramatically increases speeds, giving telecoms, like Eircom, the ability to transmit data at an astonishing 400Gb/s down a single fibre. But more importantly it ramps up capacity on a broadband pipe to levels close to terabit capacity.
A key advantage to DWDM is that it is protocol and bit-rate independent so carriers and telecoms can transmit data using all sorts of standards including IP, ATM, SONET /SDH and Ethernet. Eircom said it will use it for high capacity leased lines, ATM, Frame Relay and DSL.
"In terms of future proofing, we estimate that this development will supply Eircom with sufficient capacity on these routes for the foreseeable future," explained John Quist, Eircom's director of network services. And Eircom is not the first, or the only company to be using DWDM. According to research, there have been over 300 publicly announced rollouts of DWDM since 1999 around the world, and more are on the way.
Indeed, the DWDM systems market jumped from USD4.2 billion in 1999 to USD8.9 billion in 2000, according estimates by research company KMI. Moreover the research firm says that the number of vendors offering DWDM products grew from about 15 in 1999 to more than 30 in 2000.
KMI is forecasting continued growth in the DWDM market, but at a slower rate than seen over the past few years. The DWDM systems market will grow at a 43 percent CAGR from 2000 to 2005, when the market will reach an impressive USD53.9 billion, KMI said.
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