A new Association for Passive Optical LAN (APOLAN) has been formed to promote the global adoption of passive optical networks in the local area network. Founding members include Corning, IBM, SAIC, TE Connectivity, Tellabs, Zhone and 3M.
The association said the next generation of Passive Optical LAN technologies will bring revolutionary change for the IT industry by providing the simplicity, scale and bandwidth to address current and future demand, while minimizing costly and disruptive cabling and equipment upgrades. Backers also point to substantial savings in capital and operational costs over traditional workgroup switch-based LAN architectures.
“Participation in the APOLAN is open to all organizations interested in leveraging Passive Optical Networking to revolutionize the way local area networks are designed, deployed, and managed,” said Dave Cunningham, president and chairman of the APOLAN. “The deployments of Passive Optical LAN to date have demonstrated significant cost and performance advantages compared to traditional Ethernet designs, and the optical foundation “future-proofs” the network for any new bandwidth demand – a clear advantage over existing copper solutions.”
