Time Warner Telecom to Double Network Capacity

In a move spurred by an ever-increasing appetite for business bandwidth, Time Warner Telecom Inc. and Lucent Technologies Inc. signed a $100 million deal last week to deploy Lucent's latest optical networking technology across parts of the Time Warner Telecom network. That network is a competitive local exchange carrier in which AOL Time Warner Inc. in New York holds a 47.5% stake.

Joe Mambretti, director of the International Center for Advanced Internet Research at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., said the bandwidth demand is being driven by an increasing number of networked applications, such as streaming media. Only optical technologies can satisfy that demand, he said.

The new Lucent system will be installed in Littleton, Colo.-based Time Warner Telecom's western regional network. It uses advanced dense wave division multiplexing to double the bandwidth on the telecommunications company's current optical fiber infrastructure.

Murray Hill, N.J.-based Lucent said the system can deliver rates of 800G bit/sec., and it can be upgraded to accommodate 1.6T bit/sec.

Time Warner Telecom said the new technology will be applied to much of the network it recently acquired for $690 million from the bankrupt GST Telecommunications Inc. in Vancouver, Wash. Deployment of the optical system should be completed by the middle of this year, Lucent said.