France Telecom to outline participation in cutting edge SARDANA FTTx project

Tier 1 network equipment manufacturers, industry leading CEOs, top analysts, and representatives of Europe’s cutting edge FTTx projects will all feature in the ECOC 2008 Market Focus seminars, taking place next week in Brussels, Belgium, 22-24 September.  Pre-registration numbers for the ECOC Exhibition 2008 have exceeded last year by over 500, and show organisers are expecting record numbers once again.

“The ECOC Market Focus is growing in stature and in quality, with this year’s speakers representing the hot topics in Europe’s optical communications marketplace,” said Market Focus moderator, Per Danielsen.  “Fibre Optic communications are coming to the fore as a technology to meet increasing bandwidth demands from enterprise and residential customers, and the expansion of the ECOC Exhibition and the Market Focus seminars reflects that.”

The presentations, which take place on the exhibition floor, will be opened by Cisco co-founder, Len Bosack, on Tuesday 23rd at 10:30, and will then feature Robin Mersh, COO at the Broadband Forum; John-Paul Hemingway, Chief Technologist at Ciena; Dr. Stephan Neidlinger, Director of WDM at ADVA Optical Networking; and Dana Cooperson, VP Network Infrastructure at Ovum RHK.

The Tuesday afternoon session will put the spotlight on two cutting edge, European-funded WDM-PON FTTx projects - GigaWaM, which will be represented by Magnus Breidne, CEO of Ignis Photonyx, and SARDANA, which will be represented by Craig Thomas of Tellabs, and Philippe Chanclou of France Telecom.

The third session, beginning on Wednesday morning at 10:00, opens with Alain Couder, President and CEO of optical component and module player, Bookham, Inc.  The session will focus on the metro and long-haul/ultra long-haul network markets, and will address issues of 40 and 100Gb/s transport, successful business models for component manufacturers, and the impacts of industry consolidation.  Alain Couder will be followed by Kim Papakos of Tellabs; Harry Bosco, CEO of Opnext; and Sinclair Vass of JDSU.

Last year’s ECOC Exhibition attracted nearly 6,000 visitors - an increase of 20% on 2006 - and sold out for the first time since the market crash. Pre-registration numbers for this year’s event have already hit record highs, doubling those of 2006.  For more information about the exhibition please visit www.ecocexhibition.com.