Once again, Acacia Communications will be heading to the beautiful city of Nice to attend and speak at Next Generation Optical Networking (NGON) and DCI World on May 21-23. It’s our 6^th year at this show, but this year is extra special because 2019 marks Acacia’s 10-year anniversary.

This provides the perfect opportunity to reflect on the company’s innovative track record, which has enabled coherent optical interconnect reductions in power, size and cost per 100G at a pace of approximately 40% per year. Through this continued innovation and working intimately with our customers, we have solved some of the toughest optical networking challenges in the industry. As we embark on Nice, we are thankful to have had the opportunity to help our customers succeed during the last 10 years, and we are excited about what we can do together in the future.

Also during the show, we are excited to have our own Tom Williams speak on a plenary panel titled “To the terabit & beyond – practicalities for coherent transmission.” He’ll be joined by executives from Cignal AI, Telecom Argentina, OIF and ADVA, and their discussion will center around current operational demands and the potential offerings to support adoption through strategies and technologies. Tom’s panel is scheduled for Wed. May 22nd at 9:30 am. If you want more info on what will be discussed, check out the session description.

Some of the other key topics to be discussed include the 5G evolution, reducing costs, increasing capacity, data center connectivity, network automation, pluggable networks and much, much more!

As always, Acacia’s goal is to deliver the products that help our customers win. Below are two prominent trends we are seeing in the industry and how we plan to help our customers participate in those application areas. We think these will be two hot topic areas at NGON and DCI World and we look forward to discussing these in detail with customers, carriers, partners, cloud providers and OEMs.

Multi-Haul Solutions

Customers are finding enormous benefit using coherent transmission with varying baud rates and modulation modes applicable to multiple types of networks as described in this video. Our AC1200 module, powered by Acacia’s Pico DSP, delivers the flexibility and industry leading performance customers need for these multi-haul applications. Delivering 2Tbps in a footprint 40% smaller than 5×7 modules supporting 400Gbps today, and supported by customer validation testing, the AC1200 has achieved significant industry momentum over the last year. Multiple network equipment manufacturers (NEMs,) including Cisco, ADVA, and ECI Telecom are currently introducing systems based on AC1200 and it was successfully used in the first 400G transmission across the 6,600km trans-Atlantic Marea Cable. The AC1200 also features an innovative 3D shaping technology that offers network operators the flexibility to customize the AC1200 transmission to their network requirements. All these features and more are what led to Lightwave Magazine awarding the AC1200 the highest score of 5.0 in its Lightwave Innovations Reviews Program this past March.

Edge and Access Applications

Coherent pluggables are evolving to the edge to solve capacity issues in network access and edge applications, enabling carriers to reduce CapEx/OpEx and increase reach. Acacia’s 100G/200G CFP2 module, incorporating our Meru DSP, offers simple integration and a pay as you grow commercial model. There’s also a lot of buzz around the 400G CFP2 and future 400G QSFP-DD and OSFP 400G pluggables utilizing the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) specification for 400ZR to address key applications such as point-to-point data center interconnect (DCI) and IP over DWDM.

We are looking forward to a great show this year and of course, we can’t wait to spend a few days at the stunning venue Palais des Congrès Nice Acropolis. If you are lucky enough to be attending the show, we’d love to meet with you, discuss the trends we highlighted above, or even toast to our 10-year anniversary at the annual beach party. Contact us and someone will get back to you to set something up.

You can also follow our updates from the show on Twitter @AcaciaComms or #NGON2019.

We look forward to seeing you in Nice!

“We are honored to accept this prestigious award. Based on our experience, we see coherent moving from metro core to access aggregation networks such as 5G backhaul and fiber deep Remote PHY for cable access. Access networks delivering high bandwidth services could dramatically increase energy requirements to power and cool the equipment providing these services. We believe Acacia is on the forefront of providing the high performance, low power, compact form factor solutions necessary to help enable data centers to run on sustainable energy.”

• Raj Shanmugaraj, president and chief executive officer of Acacia Communications

We also marked our attendance at the show with the announcement of our Coherent ZR Optics Solutions for 100G CFP-DCO ZR and 100G/200G CFP2 ZR pluggable modules. Small coherent modules for very compact systems, they are designed to address 5G and fiber deep applications, as well as data center edge and enterprise campus applications.

In talking with customers about the CFP2 module, we heard that they like the capacity granularity for metro with 100G/200G per wave. We also had a lot of good discussion on the following key features:

• Support for 200G/ lambda – at a significant low cost/bit
• Simplified system integration with DCO interface
• Integrated functionality eliminating the need for additional ASICs: OTU framer function, Layer 1 Encryption
• Easy network maintenance with rich performance monitoring such as link dispersion/PMD/PDL/OSNR

To learn more about how the CFP2 pluggable coherent module can help network operators reduce CapEX and OpEx, increase reach, and prepare for future growth, watch this video.

We look forward to seeing everyone at ECOC, September 23 – 27 in Rome, Italy.

Nice, France here we come! The Acacia team is excited to attend NGON & DCI Europe 2018 this month for the fifth year in a row. There is always something fun to do in Nice, from attending NGON and the annual beach party at le galet to taking in the some of the local architecture designed by Buzzi, Bernasconi, and Baptiste.

We, of course, most look forward to hearing updates from industry luminaries about the future of optical networking and discussing Acacia Communications’ optical interconnect solutions and how they help meet the demands of today and tomorrow’s optical networks. We think some of this year’s hot topics will be:

• Addressing the need to grow capacity in access and edge networks with coherent ZR optics solutions
• Optimizing multi-haul network capacity
• Expanding data center interconnect bandwidth to 400G and beyond
• Leveraging coherent pluggable modules for applications including access, metro, and DCI to help reduce CapEX and OpEx and accelerate time to market
• Using coherent optics in wireless backhaul for 4G/5G

We look forward to connecting with our peers to discuss these topics. To schedule a meeting with Acacia Communications, please submit a request through our contact form.

You can follow our updates from the show on Twitter @AcaciaComms or #NGON2018.

We look forward to seeing you in Nice!