100 G: Arriving sooner than you think

100 Gbps Ethernet is coming, and its moving faster than I expected. What’s really surprised me is the speed at which 4×25 Gbps Ethernet has advanced. Last year when I reported on 40G/100G Ethernet, most of the 100 Gbps activity was using 10×10 Gbps lanes. Apparently, the needs for fewer, faster lanes is quite real.

There have been a number of recent 100G Ethernet product announcements as well as demonstrations. They involved Optical transceiver makers Opnext and Finisar and test-equipment makers Exfo, Ixia, and JDSU. The optical modules conform to the CFP Multisource agreement for 40G/100G Ethernet optical modules that will go onto line cards in switches and routers.

Opnext has participated in two demos using its TRC5E20ENF 100GBASE-LR4 optical module. I didn’t find this part number at opnext.com. Apparently, it’s not release but is available as samples. On December 8, 2009, the Opnext and JDSU announced the results of a 40-hour test of sending IP (Internet Protocol) packets. A JDSU 100GE tester provided the test results.

Opnext also worked with Exfo. On January 11, the companies announced successful results using the same 100 Gbps optical module, the time with Exfo’s 40G/100G Ethernet Test Module. This test involved PRBS patterns and Ethernet packets running on four 25 Gbps lanes.

Finisar and Ixia also teamed up for a 100 Gbps demo. The demo, which you can read about in Finisar’s Lightspeed blog, used a Finisar 100GE LR4 CFP transceiver and in Ixia’s K2 40 Gbps/100 Gbps interface modules to its Ethernet tester.

A word about the press releases, though. They often use the word “interoperability,” but I question that. In these cases, the optical transceivers used at both ends of the fiber come from the same company. So of course, you expect them to work. Real interoperability testing will come when test involve optical modules from different companies connected to the same fiber. When that happens, you can expect test labs such as UNH-IOL to get involved.

In addition to the 40G/100G test equipment linked above, Other test products have come online over the last several months.

Spirent communications has added a 40G/100G interface module for its TestCenter, a Layer 1 to Layer 7 tester.

For physical-layer testing, the BertScope 25000A from Synthesys Research can perform BER tests at data rates up to 26 Gbps, which covers the speed of a single lane of 100GBASE LR4/ER4.

Just this week, Agilent Technologies announced the N4876A, a 2:1 multiplexer for its J-Bert and ParBERT BER testers. The mux expands the data rate of the two BERTs to 28 Gbps.

Long-haul 100 Gbps communications, a topic that I’m currently researching, is already in deployment. According to a December 14, 2009 press release, Verizon has deployed a 100 Gbps transport system manufactured by Nortel. It reportedly can send 100 Gbps of data one a single wavelength a distance of 853 km between Paris and Frankfurt.