We need to place a new order for some new fiber builds and were considering some other vendors. Especially in the nx2.5G and nx10G (are CWDM x-cievers even available in 10G yet?) range. Anyone have any new favorites? 2.5G are only slightly more expensive than 1G - if you have OC48 gear that is SFP-capable, by all means, use that.
10G CWDM is *rumoured* to exist, but I don't think there are any production ones yet. Feel free to correct me. 10G is all DWDM, and so far very pricy.
I think this is the rub (regarding multirate optics). What I'd love to be able to do is take a multirate optic and shove it into some 1U type switch or router that takes several gigabits of a IP or Ethernet frames and load balances them PPP or CEF style across a few 2.5/2.7G lambdas. So say 10 gigabits of traffic over 4 lambdas. I don't need to replicate GE signaling or SONET signaling... just move the bits. I know this is very easy (trivial even) at 1G signaling rates, I never understood [other than for markup purposes] why the vendors don't let those uplink ports be 2.5G capable. (I'm already aware of the cards that two 2G -> 1 multirate lambda. I would like a box that does better than that as effective throughput on the lambda -- it reduces complexity on our end and media conversion needs). Any suggestions?? Thanks. Deepak