The optical last mile: where will it lead us? - Virtual roundtable: networld + interop, Atlanta, fall 2001 - Cover Story

Communications News, Nov, 2001

To assess the issues and opportunities optical technologies and networks bring to end-users, we invited six leading experts to our semiannual roundtable discussion, scheduled for Sept. 11, during the Networld Interop show in Atlanta. Unfortunately, that give-and-take session had to be cancelled. In its place, we created a virtual roundtable on "The Optical Last Mile," with our original panel of experts participating via e-mail, resulting in this interesting and informative dialogue on the optical revolution.

Is the optical last mile really necessary? Why or why not?

Sandra McWilliams: Fiber is the only available medium that achieves the optimal bandwidth, reliability, flexibility and security required by today's enterprises. As the way we con duct business continues to evolve, new video and data applications will tax the limits of existing infrastructure. Advancing the optical last mile is a proactive, pragmatic approach to the imminent growth of bandwidth demand.

Mark Fishburn: September 11th obviously magnified many market trends already in place, but may accelerate business benefits for the high-speed access market. Many pieces to the puzzle--increased demand for home entertainment to upcoming technology and metro-focused service providers--make delivery of that fiber economical. Layoffs will presumably lead to an increase in SOHOs looking for low-cost, high-speed connectivity.

Cuneyt Ozveren: Given a cyclical economy like this one, it becomes very difficult to scale IT departments up and down as market conditions change. A solution for this problem is outsourcing IT requirements. Optical last mile enables a high-bandwidth access to enterprise networks, which, coupled with quality of service, enables application service providers to offer outsourced IT services.

David Montanaro: Long term, there is little doubt that the bandwidth requirements of business and residential users will surpass the ability of any other media to handle it. If fiber is the end game, why waste time and money on interim solutions now?

Brendan Mullooly: The optical last mile is necessary in the overall scheme; however, we see it as an ethernet-based, end-to-end solution. Only fiber provides virtually limitless bandwidth, as opposed to fixed-wireless or copper-based solutions. Where enterprise users are within easy reach of the fiber-optic infrastructure, they can benefit from virtually unlimited bandwidth of optical ethernet. Offerings from traditional telcos and ATM-based networks are unable to match the robust capabilities of optical ethernet in terms of flexibility, scalability, cost, bandwidth and speed of deployment.

Lawrence Prior III: Customers are demanding the bandwidth. Optical technologies are the only way to bridge the gap between the need for bandwidth at the network edge and the huge optical bandwidth capacity already in existence at the network core. As more bandwidth-hungry applications are developed, the bottleneck between the edge and core will become more acute. For example, end-users with 11-Mbps wireless LANs are not going to be satisfied with only a 1-Mbps network connection--especially when efficient high-capacity fiber-optic networks are just a few hundred meters away.

What are the challenges and concerns for enterprises considering optical technologies?

Mullooly: Oftentimes, there is a perception that optical-networking projects are a bigger task than they actually are. Deploying optical technologies, such as optical ethernet, allows enterprise network managers to add computing bandwidth where it makes the most sense, easily add users to the network and reduce the need for specially trained IT staff to manage the network. The primary benefit from optical ethernet is that it increases the available bandwidth, while relatively reducing the cost of WAN connections--plus enabling the use of familiar and inexpensive LAN technologies and protocols, such as VLAN.

Enterprise network users and LAN managers may be uncomfortable with fiber and all its ramifications, such as multimode, single-mode, connector types and distance requirements. At the enterprise level, there is no need to worry because the service provider will connect the enterprise to the fiber network, providing the necessary demarcation point between the LAN and the MAN, usually as simple as deploying a media converter between the two. As a result, enterprise users do not see any obvious, discernible difference because the change from one to the other is totally transparent, with ethernet running on both sides of the connection.

Prior: Enterprise customers have to develop optical networks that are flexible and scalable as the technologies improve. The near-term challenge will be--figuratively and literally--to close the loop, to finish optical networks and bring benefits of optical technologies to end-users. Business customers want efficiency, reliability and low costs. As demand for bandwidth increases, as more complicated applications come on the market, businesses will have to adopt new services in order to stay competitive. As competition grows and budgets contract, there will be even more emphasis on finding ways to connect enterprise customers to the thousands of miles of fiber already at the network core.