It's been a busy year (and by year, we mean fiscal year, which ends in a few weeks) for Cisco's optical solutions team. We've had a number of customer announcements for our 100G nLight DWDM technology and most recently scooped up an award for our CPAK-based 100G transponder card. Service providers across the globe have responded positively to Cisco's ability to extend 100G services across network that were engineered for 10G wavelengths, and with CPAK we're reducing the space and power and increasing the density of 100G services in routers (CRS-X), data center switches (Nexus 7000), and optical transport equipment (ONS15454 MSTP).

The news for today centers on our latest customer announcement for our DWDM solution, Vectra S.A., one of the largest cable operators in Poland has deployed Cisco for their new national fiber optic backbone. The network is a nationwide ring, connecting nearly thirty? cities around Poland, including Warsaw, Katowice, Wroclaw, Poznan, Radom, Bydgoszcz, Torun, and Gdynia.

Vectra's new network infrastructure provides them a foundation to deliver high-bandwidth services, including voice, data, personalized video (video on demand) and mobile backhaul.  Financially the company will benefit by reducing leased line costs -today their forced to pay for capacity as network services increase. By owning their own lit fiber network they can quickly and easily expand as needed, all while reducing operational costs. Provisioning times that could have stretched for months can be reduced to minutes.

Initially Vectra will only use 10G wavelengths (after all, they had to pay for all network capacity in the past) but by now owning their network they're free to leverage 100G services as they grow their business.

Tomasz Zuranski, president, Vectra S.A. notes that:

"Cisco technology has significantly increased the bandwidth capabilities of Vectra's backbone network for our current and planned services. It is a crucial element of our technology and telco infrastructure based on optical fibre and the main artery for Vectra's digital services, lowering our digital transmission costs in the long-term perspective."

To learn more about Cisco 100G DWDM technology, please visit our 100G Solutions web site.