Juniper Networks (NASDAQ:JNPR, news, filings), Infinera (NASDAQ:INFN, news, filings), and Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) announced today that they will work together towards the eventual development of highly anticipated 100 Gigabit Ethernet technology, along with research networks Internet2 and ESnet. Of course, we already knew that each was working on their own part of this, so one might wonder why we needed a press release. And given that the economy trumps everything right now, especially new technology that won’t be here until 2010 when the media expects us to be living in caves, nobody is likely to get that excited today.
But 100GbE is important, the industry needs it to be in the pipeline. All three companies want to remind us that despite near term challenges we must not take our eyes completely off the technological ball. They want to be ready with products when the IEEE finishes the standards in mid 2010, Infinera with DWDM gear, Juniper with routers, and Level 3 selling the bandwidth itself.
I do wish though that there was more than a promise to work together, is there a next step in the offing? Back in July Level 3 and Infinera demonstrated a pre-standards 100GbE, what do we do now while we wait for the techno-bureaucrats to make up their minds what to call everything? Probably just tinker around in the labs and do another demo next summer, but still… 🙂
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Categories: Fiber optic cable · Internet Backbones · Telecom Equipment
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Sweet, so much bandwidth! OMG!
Juniper is certainly on the cutting edge.