It’s crazy to make interconnections in fibre networks electronically if the work can be done optically, and Boulder, Colorado-based Astarte Fiber Networks Inc has launched the Star-Switch PCS-1600 photonic cross-connect system, claiming it to be a completely optical matrix switch for single mode fibre optic networks. The PCS-1600 interconnects both point-to-point and ring network topologies and provides a complete photonic connection, protocol transparency, multiple wavelength throughput, and unlimited bandwidth previously unavailable in single mode networks, the company claims. It suggests that the photonic cross-connect offers many of the same operational and cost savings benefits to single-mode fibre optic networks that digital cross-connect and matrix switching systems provide to high-speed copper wire networks. It sees the switch being used in disaster recovery, route diversity, optical test access and fibre optic cable management. All transmissions remain optical and the system can transport Asynchronous Transfer Mode, Synchronous Optical Network, ISDN, and other high-speed network protocols, and can be used to switch speech, data and video transmissions by the likes of telephone and long distance companies, cable TV companies, utilities, metropolitan networking companies. It uses microprocessor-based positioning and servo-control alignment to provide fast switching speeds and low insertion loss. No prices.
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