Simon Zelingher, AT&T Research Labs VP says his company will need to upgrade to a 100-Gbit/s backbone by the end of the decade in order to keep up with bandwidth demand driven by video and multimedia applications. AT&T recently quadrupled capacity by moving to one global OC-768 (40 Gbit/s) core, but that bandwidth is being eaten up more quickly than the telco expected.
One 40-Gbit/s DWDM system in one point of presence, capable of carrying 80 wavelengths at full capacity, was already 25 percent full last fall. Verizon this week issued a press release saying that they were in the process of upgrading key backbone routes from 10 Gbps to 40 Gbps.
Access bandwidth required for Internet access at 6 Mbps to 24 Mbps by 2010 is one reason. Access at 100 Mbps in a decade is another.
1 comment:
I think you're being optimistic if you think 100G backbones won't be needed until 2010. In the Japanese market, with it's higher penetration of FTTP than the U.S., the IP traffic growth has accelerated more quickly than the U.S. in the last 18 months. It's likely we will see the same in the U.S. as broadband offerings catch up with the rest of the developed world. Some carriers are already pressing the limits of bundling 10G waves. Unfortunately the IEEE HSSG is already behind in developing a 100G standard for Ethernet and OC-3072/STM-1024 equipment is a pipe dream at this point.
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