f products are being planned by EtherCarrier Communications (which is located in Red Bank, New Jersey). EtherCarrier is a newly launched developer of price-optimized, carrier- class, optical, next-generation edge and central office (CO) devices for GbE and 10 GbE in the WAN technology. It is to be used by next-generation information carriers including Ethernet Local Exchange Carriers (ELECs), metropolitan area service providers (MASPs), Fiber LECs (FLECs), Com- petitive LECs (CLECs), Incumbent LECs (ILECs), Internet service providers (ISPs), and high-end corporate customers with campuses, pri- vately owned fiber, or leased fiber. The developer takes advantage of con- spicuous secular trends in the move toward full-speed, end-to-end, 1 and 10 GbE in the WAN to support native Ethernet and IP over optics communi- cation networks that new carriers will set out to deploy in the next couple of years-moving on from the ashes of the CLEC maturation, saturation, and debacle that was seen at the dawn of 2000. The goal of the developer is to supply carrier-class, cost-effective, fiber-optic network edge devices to the carrier industry to meet the ever-increasing market demands to deliver converged broadband IP-based data/Internet/internetworking services over gigabit infrastructures that make use of the latest optical and customer- control technologies. These devices fill a market void. The company develops optical network equipment for both edge and CO applications based on the latest optics, GbE, and 10 GbE WAN technologies. This kind of technology is being referred to as third-generation (3G) optics. Optical edge equipment will be deployed in customer buildings and con- nected to the CO optical equipment over a traditional fiber facility. The edge equipment enables fiber-optic pair gain, where multiple customers in a building are each provided between 1 and 10 Gbps, but all utilize the same (protected) access fiber pair. The goal is to extend the advances seen in the Chapter 5 optical space over the past few years in the