Optical Fiber Conference opens: Broadband demand continues
OFCNFOEC conference and exhibition, March 22-26, 2009, San Diego, CA. www.ofcnfoec.org.
Martin Rowe, Senior Technical Editor -- Test & Measurement World, 3/25/2009 1:57:00 PM
Read more from OFCNFOEC 2009: "Innovations keep coming at OFCNFOEC 2009" and the annual panel session for the press (below). Martin's blog entries from the show: "Not so doom and gloom," and "40G and 100G Ethernet: The hype has arrived." |
SAN DIEGO, CA—At the OFCNFOEC plenary session on Tuesday, March 24, Shri Kuldeep Goyal, Chairman of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL), India, explained how India is being wired for broadband access. Access networks such as FTTH (fiber to the home) is expanding with 40,000 km of fiber being laid every year. By 2015, Goyal expects that 100 million homes will have FTTH. This should result in lower telecom prices. He predicts explosive growth, driven by wired and wireless services.
Philippe Morin, president, metro Ethernet networks at Nortel, Canada, followed Goyal by saying “The optical industry is going through extraordinary times.” Although he cited the current economic downturn as a challenge, new business models are emerging because of huge bandwidth demands. “Today, capital is hard to get,” he told the audience. “The ‘build it and they will come’ mentality is gone.”
He continued by noting that at the time of the last business downturn, “the Internet was an experiment. Today, it’s a vehicle for business models where people actually make money,” citing a decision by CBS to make TV shows available online at no charge. He noted that the economic downturn is actually accelerating bandwidth growth because people are staying home and they want their entertainment delivered. Morin also noted that electronic devices and connectivity have moved move from “nice to have” to a necessity. People are willing to spend more for connectivity and they’re spending more time online. He cited HD video, which will drive bandwidth growth. “People will want to see video in HD. They will never go back to standard video.”
Law professional Lawrence Lessig of Stanford (moving to Harvard) followed Morin. Lessing is considered the authority on cyber law.
Lessig told the audience that today’s copyright laws need to be revamped for the digital age. He made his case by talking about a network, not an electronic entity used for communication, but one where people share ideas.
“I want you to think about network as a platform for the exchange of ideas and information.” He said. “Not a physical infrastructure, but a logical infrastructure, a legal infrastructure: The set of rules that we need to make connections.”
Lessig said that “machines” such as TV and radio changed us from what he called a “read-write” society to a “read only” society. Prior to radio and TV, people used to sing songs and be artistic. We used to participate in our culture. In the 20th century, entertainment became professionalized.
But people still produced text and photos when cameras because inexpensive. “In the 21st century,” he argued, “we will become a producing culture.” It started around 2004, with a revival of the “read-write” culture. People began to remix audio and video into their own work. But, this leads to people making copies of others’ original work. Every time you download a Web page, you make a copy of someone’s content. Because of that, Lessig argued that today’s copyright laws no longer work.
Following the plenary session, members of the press gathered for the annual panel session. This year’s topic was innovation of optical products. The session was led by Daryl Innis, VP and practice leader at Ovum. Also on the panel were Matthew Ma, VP, transport and network engineering at Tata Communications; Philippe Morin, president, metro Ethernet networks at Nortel, Canada; Mike Nishiguchi, general manager, transmission devices R&D labs at Sumitomo; and Andrew Odlyzko, professor, School of Mathematics and Digial Technology Center, University of Minnesota.
Innis: Core network traffic has grown 50% year after year since 2001. The problem is revenue. Carrier revenues for wireline have shown just single digit growth since 2001-2002. There have been some positive things. The cost of equipment had decreased as the traffic has grown. There has been a 20%-25% cost reduction per year for network transport equipment. We’re being asked to push further as traffic demands increase and we must reduce costs even further. Traffic may be increasing, and innovations such as 40G/100G will meet the challenge.
At the network edge, FTTx fiber is coming to the user. It’s the cost per user, not cost per bit. Edge networks must support reliability and performance at significantly reduced cost. Advances are needed in optical transport and switching.
Innis: When we think about ecosystem, what optical innovation do we need? What do we need to minimize upfront costs and keep lifecycle costs down?
Ma: We care about lowest cost and reliability. In India, network connectivity is much worse than in North America. The market can afford much less in India. We rely on equipment providers but we want to build a network that’s easier to deploy new services, not just at the physical layer, but at the protocol layers to build more complex services. We need to optimize the network across different platforms. We need to make the network more efficient.
Morin: Bandwidth growth is happening. Simplification of the network will happen. The challenge is to lower the cost of bandwidth at the access point and at the edge network.
Nishiguchi: The industry is facing a big challenge to reduce costs. We have reduced costs, but reducing cost 20%-25% per year is not sustainable.
Odlyzko, who has studied Internet growth, provided a completely different perspective: This technology takes a lot of effort and people take it for granted. I’m not so pessimistic that we won’t be able to maintain those cost reductions. Innovation is required. In telecom, I see declining growth rates in the Internet. Growth has slowed from doubling every 100 days to doubling every year. That’s because telecom networks can’t support a higher growth rate. Innovation is needed. Even in Hong Kong, which has the highest density, growth is down to 10% a year. In Canada, growth is down to 32%. Everyone talks about video, but there are other applications, such as security and business applications. 50% growth rate just about compensates for the growth in capacity.
Innis: Are we building capacity at a rate that is consistent with the real growth?
Ma: From a business model, India and China are growth markets. In North America, it’s more mature and the growth is slowing down. Africa is coming online.
Innis: With President Obama pumping money into bringing rural areas online, what’s the impact?
Odlyzko: I don’t see that having a profound affect on overall traffic. The industry needs to find ways to stimulate Internet traffic.
Innis: As we develop more applications, we need to support the applications. Philippe, are you done investing in growth?
Morin: We are not done investing. Some corridors don’t have enough fiber or bandwidth. We can grow in the long haul and metro markets. 100 Gbit will start being deployed this year and we’re looking toward the next bit rate. You will see innovations on the packet side, such as merging layer 1 and layer 2. It’s still about reducing cost.
Innis to Nishiguchi: How do you see us keeping pace?
Nishiguchi: Sumitomo is four companies with half revenues coming from photonics. In the US, you need a car. What are you paying a month for a car compared to Internet access? In Japan, we don’t need a car, but we’re paying half as much for Internet access. Japanese people are very good at waiting. We are more cautious about sending big files over the Internet than are people in the US. We can’t keep driving the cost down and still make money. Today, we’re using 10-Gbps technology, which was invented 15 years ago. Now we’re talking 100 Gb, but the cost is too high.
Morin: Cost is all relative to what the customer will pay. We will save on power with higher-power bandwidth technology with higher-speed networks. That will make the total network more cost effective.
Odlyzko: Parts of the world are growing at 100% per year. Wireless data is growing at more than 100% per year worldwide. But, it’s less than 1% of wireline data. Mobility is more valuable to users. They’re willing to pay more for wireless than wireline. Voice provides most of the value to users but it’s a small percentage of the bandwidth. The issue will come when carriers may have to charge more.
A question from the audience: Carriers want to keep existing infrastructure alive. Won’t that stifle innovation? What’s the killer application?
Morin: Bandwidth growth is real, both for video and data. Microsecond trading is needed, so we need to reduce latency. When we went from voice to video that was a doubling of bandwidth, now HD is a fivefold increase, and 3-D video will double bandwidth needs again. Synchronization of data will drive bandwidth needs.
Ma: I’m not sure there is one killer application that will instantly double or triple bandwidth use. It’s a combination of things. For example, data centers, telepresence (teleconferencing) are pushing bandwidth usage. YouTube has created a visible jump in bandwidth usage. “If you build it, they will come” building mentality may only work in certain areas. You can’t have the business completely reactive to demand. You have to prebuild and take some risk.
Innis: As Andrew said, we need to continue to drive people to use the bandwidth we have.
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