OPTICAL NETWORKING

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OPTICAL NETWORKING
Ron Sinnes Director, Engineering and
Operations October 17th, 2000
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AGENDA

• Development of Optical Networking
• Market Drivers
• Network Scenarios
• Key Issues for Carriers

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OPTICAL NETWORKING TIME LINE
Nirvana
Day 1.......2..........3.......Today..........5...
..........6........
Let there be All Optical Networks
Let there be DWDM
In the beginning, Let there be Light
Let there be WDM
Let there be Optical Switching
Let there be Standards (SDH)
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DAY 1 15 YEARS AGO
Proprietary Fibre Systems
Fibre Pair

• Considered superior to copper systems
• Limited capacity for large space consumed
• Interoperability nearly impossible

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DAY 2 10 YEARS AGO
Standards-Based (SDH) Fibre Systems
Fibre Pair

• Increased Density
• Interoperability now possible
• Cost reduced due to common components

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DAY 3 7 YEARS AGO
Passive WDM Coupling
Fibre Pair
WDM
WDM

• Fibre exhaustion alleviated
• Passive components highly reliable
• Very cheap solution
• Broadband laser still in use

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TODAY 4 YEARS AGO - NOW
Active Component DWDM
Fibre Pair

• Fibre exhaustion alleviated
• Active components including transponders, tunable
  lasers,
• Wide Band Linear Op Amps

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MARKET DRIVERS

• DWDM started in the long haul (U.S.)
• Carriers were running out of fibre
• Cost of increasing in STM increments was
  expensive
• Huge bandwidth demand
• DWDM moved into short haul
• Interexchange fibre exhausted
• Huge bandwidth demand
• Dark Fibre requests
• Non-STM based requirements

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TRADITIONAL LONG HAUL SOLUTION

• _Fibre exhaustion on long haul routes, new builds
  are expensive
• _Point-to-Point DWDM systems, including OP Amps
  act as fibre multipliers

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TRADITIONAL METRO SOLUTION
Central Office
Central Office
Central Office
DWDM Rings

• Fibre exhaustion on metro rings
• Point-to-Point DWDM systems, excluding OP Amps
  acting as fibre multipliers

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MOVING TOWARD THE FUTURE

• Optical Services
• High Speed SDH (STM-4, 16, etc)
• Dark Fibre (Unmanaged)
• DIM Fibre (Managed)
• Non-STM Bound Service
• Gigabit Ethernet
• ESCON
• FDDI
• Etc....

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MOVING TOWARD THE FUTURE

• Carriers need to think about
• Scalability - Look out for future requirements,
  not todays limitations
• Ubiquity - Any point to any point service
  availability
• Operational Consistency - Service needs to be
  delivered the same every time
• Supportability - The integrity of the network
  must be maintained

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TYPICAL CBD NETWORK
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ADD ONE CUSTOMER, TWO LOCATIONS

• Build a small DWDM ring, connect several
  buildings in the process

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ADD ANOTHER CUSTOMER, TWO LOCATIONS

• Expand the DWDM ring by expanding the fibre

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ADD ANOTHER CUSTOMER, TWO LOCATIONS

• Build new ring, add new buildings

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ADD ANOTHER CUSTOMER, TWO LOCATIONS

• Interconnect two rings

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ADD ANOTHER CUSTOMER, TWO LOCATIONS

• Build a new ring, or expand existing rings, or ??

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REAL CBD NETWORK
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ISSUES

• Engineering
• Space (building space is very limited)
• Power (power is very limited)
• Operating Environment (not Central Office)

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ISSUES

• Operational
• End-to-end Provisioning
• End-to-end Performance Monitoring and Reporting
• Alarm Management
• Wavelength Management

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OPTICAL NETWORKING TIME LINE
Nirvana
Day 1.......2..........3.......Today..........5...
..........6........
Let there be All Optical Networks
Let there be DWDM
In the beginning, Let there be Light
Let there be WDM
Let there be Optical Switching
Let there be Standards (SDH)
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SUMMARY

• Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 Fibre networks, standards,
  and increasing bandwidth.
• Day 4 Increasing bandwidth, but by much bigger
  factors (10, 20, 80, 160 .....).
• Day 5 Switching light, allowing carriers to
  deliver services in the most economical, reliable
  and ubiquitous way.
• Day 6 All the network elements are in place
• increasing the scope of the optical network to
  extend beyond one-off projects
• increasing the availability of fibre hand-offs
• creating intelligent optical networks

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THE FUTURE

• Everything and everyone will be connected to a
  Global Network via a fibre interface.
• Devices and People on this network will
  communicate by exchanging pulses of light.
• The network will interpret pulses of light and
  determine the desired destination.
• Speed, ubiquity and connectivity will be the most
  important factors.

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CONCLUSION

• Optical Networking today is about big bandwidth
  and the replacement of copper.
• Communications users no longer want Telco
  answers, they want communications solutions with
  Telco reliability.
• Days 5 and 6 are 2-5 years out (maybe longer).
• Vendors, network architects, and network
  engineers need to focus on todays problems and
  todays solutions with an eye toward the end
  goal
• .NIRVANA.

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OUR NETWORK. YOUR SOLUTION