Plessey will show optical switching technology at Telecom ’87 after months of deliberation – and will run a real application unlike Ericsson and NEC, also showing optical switching. The technology was not designed to switch colour television sources but video graphics is a good way of demonstrating the power of the thing. The product is an eight input channels to one outgoing channel system, which can switch 1m times the traffic that an electronic system can handle, says Mike Cardwell, director of research into solid state technology at Ple-ssey research and technology, Caswell. He does not expect the product to be in general use until the 21st century, unless it is in parts of current networks where there is already a high concentration of fibre optic links in emergency re-routing. Plessey is investing some UKP5m per year in opto-electronics.
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