Meriton Secures $54 Million for its Optical Solutions

Meriton Networks, a start-up based in Ottawa, secured US$54 million in Series C funding for its optical metro optical solutions. The company cited growing traction with carrier customers worldwide — including its role in supporting strategic partner, Fujitsu Telecommunications Europe, in addressing BT’s 21Cn network build. Meriton said it would continue to work with strategic partners in reaching top-tier service providers, as well build-out its own channels of distribution.

The oversubscribed round was led by two new prominent investors, VantagePoint Venture Partners and Nomura International. All of the previous investors in Meriton also participated in the round, including Desjardins Venture Capital Group, Newbury Ventures, Primaxis Technology Ventures, RBC Capital Partners (Telecommunications Fund), Sierra Ventures, VenGrowth and Venture Coaches/Skypoint Capital.

Meriton Networks features an end-to-end, fully managed high-speed metro/regional (HSM) services architecture that consolidates key transport capabilities (ROADM/DWDM/CWDM and Wavelength/SONET/SDH switching) within a single network element. The integrated approach promises CAPEX and OPEX savings, density as well as new networking capabilities.

Earlier this month at Supercomm, Meriton announced the addition of STS-1/VC-4 grooming to its existing ROADM and transparent wavelength switching capabilities. The mid-plane design of Meriton’s 7200 OADX enables its to support the transmission and switching of wavelengths and SONET/SDH traffic — all within a single network element. Individual wavelengths can be groomed via the SONET/SDH switch fabric or be switched transparently. As carrier networks evolve, wavelengths may be changed from SONET/SDH to Gigabit Ethernet without a truck roll. The 7200 OADX provides switching capacity of 128 bi-directional transparent wavelengths with 320 Gbps of STS-1/VC-4 grooming, and is fully non-blocking. Meriton said its non-blocking architecture is preferred over ADM-on-a-card solutions because it assures unrestricted “any wavelength to any wavelength” grooming in a single platform. With the universal fabric, a line interface can change from being a groomed OC-48 to being a transparent Gigabit Ethernet.
http://www.meriton.com

• In March 2005, Meriton named Michael Pascoe as its new CEO. Pascoe was the former CEO of PairGain Technologies, which was acquired by ADC Telecommunications in 2000 for $3 billion. Prior to PairGain, Pascoe was a key member of the executive management team at Newbridge Networks.