ONI offers new metro network gear

Optical equipment maker ONI Systems announced Tuesday two new products that will help carriers boost their communications networks in urban areas. San Jose, Calif.-based ONI will now market two components called a variable gain optical amplifier and a dispersion compensation module. Both components will be manufactured by Corning and used in metropolitan networks, which handle data within cities. The gear helps keep optical signals intact for a longer period of time as they travel down glass wires. Equipment that performs this task lessens the need for regenerating the light signals, which can involve converting them to electrical impulses, reshaping them, then changing them back into light pulses again, a process that takes time and can slow the network down.