Tuesday, July 08, 2008

EE Times: European firms engaged in R&D consortium to drive down cost of fiber optic infrastructure

LONDON — Optical components specialist Ignis Photonyx AS (Birkeröd, Denmark) is leading a European R&D project dubbed GigaWaM, that will tackle one of the biggest barriers to the uptake of next-generation broadband access technology Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) PON -– the current high cost of the components needed to deliver a wavelength to each customer's home.

One of the major partners in the project — which is being funded by the European Commission by approximately $4.7 million — is Ericsson AB.

The GigaWaM (Gigabit access passive optical network using wavelength division multiplexing) team also includes two German firms, component manufacturer FiconTEC GmbH and laser diode vendor VertiLas GmbH , and focuses on developing "application specific optical components... with a high level of integration in addition to new manufacturing processes" with a view to enabling a WDM-PON system cost per subscriber tha is lower than current GPON systems can manage.

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