March 11, 2011

POF-Plus, an EU sponsored research consortium backed by some European
telecom operators, including France Telecom and Telecom Italia,
presented the results of its research into and development of new
commercially viable technologies for transmission at Gigabit speeds over
Plastic Optical Fiber (POF) at this year’s OFC Exposition, which ran
from March 8-10 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, Calif.

This new technology was highlighted by two booths, and in a talk at the POF Symposium. At the POF-Plus booth, consortium members Firecomms, Luceat, and Rosetta IP provided live demonstrations of Gigabit Ethernet transmissions utilizing media converters. Member organizations Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits and POF Application Center (POFAC) showcased developments of the technology at the Plastic Optical Fiber Trade Organization (POFTO) booth. The developments of parallel optical transceivers for transmission of multi-gigabit transmission speeds were also featured at the POFTO booth.

Attendees interested in a full overview of the results of the Gigibit transmission project could have also attended a talk by Professor Roberto Gaudino of the Politecnico di Torino.

Hugh Hennessy, Firecomms VP of sales and marketing, concluded the presentation with a discussion of the roadmap to commercial deployment of Gigabit technology.

"For several years major operators across Europe have deployed POF in home networks because of the simplicity and ultra-thin nature of POF," said John Lambkin, CTO of Firecomms. "With these presentations, POF-PLUS is demonstrating how POF home networks, with guaranteed reliability and the lowest maintenance costs, are future-proofed for the next twenty years or more."

According to the consortium, the POF-Plus project develops new photonic components and transmission technologies for large core POF systems, aiming at the unprecedented implementation of tens of Gbps transmission over this medium. The project targets next-generation home networks, and optical interconnects in short-reach broadband connectivity applications, including storage area networks, enterprise communications, and consumer displays for uncompressed video (e.g. HDMI), it said.

CLICK HERE for more information on the POF-Plus project.