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138 Chapter 6

Photonic Photonic
Figure 6-7 output detector
The multistage Optical add/drop Back to
electrical Optical conversion
conversion
Electrical
input

Optical Converter

light, another key building block in Nortel’s strategy to be the first
mover in delivering the all-optical Internet. Combining the Xros
technology with the ultra-long-reach solution, the Qtera ULTRA
delivers high-performance with the speed, reliability, quality, and
security that can meet the needs of the twenty-first century. The
OPTera Packet Core is Nortel Networks’ solution for converging opti-
cal and packet networks. The OPTera Packet Core transports IP,
ATM, and SONET/SDH traffic with direct interfaces to the optical
layer.
An all-optical Internet will deliver millions of instant Internet
sessions, thousands of video channels, and vast amounts of e-busi-
ness transactions on an unprecedented scale. More than 75 percent
of North American Internet backbone traffic travels across Nortel
Networks’ systems. In 1999, Nortel Networks set the standards for
speed with its 80-Gbps line rate OPTera technology and for band-
width with the OPTera 1600G, which transmits 160 colors of light
across a 10-Gbps system, for a total capacity of 1.6 terabits per sec-
ond (Tbps). The OPTera switch, which is the core switch, is shown in
Figure 6-8.