Will Moore's Law "Save" Bandwidth Providers, ISPs?

In the personal computer business there is an underlying assumption that whatever problems one faces, Moore's Law will provide the answer. Whatever challenges one faces, the assumption generally is that if one simply waits 18 months, twice the processing power or memory will be available at the same price.

For a business where processing power and memory actually will solve most problems, that is partly to largely correct.

For any business where the majority or almost all cost has nothing to do with the prices or capabilities of semiconductors, Moore's Law helps, but does solve the problem of continually-growing bandwidth demand and continually-decreasing revenue-per-bit that can be earned for supplying higher bandwidth.

That is among the fundamental problems network transport and access providers face. And Moore's Law  is not going to solve the problem of increasing bandwidth consumption, says Jim Theodoras, ADVA Optical director of technical marketing.

Simply put, most of the cost of increased network throughput is not caused by the prices of underlying silicon. In fact, network architectures, protocols and operating costs arguably are the key cost drivers these days, at least in the core of the network.

The answer to the problem of "more bandwidth" is partly "bigger pipes and routers." There is some truth that notion, but not complete truth. As bandwidth continues to grow, there is some point at which the "protocols can't keep up, even if you have unlimited numbers of routers," says Theodoras.

The cost drivers lie in bigger problems such as network architecture, routing, backhaul, routing protocols and personnel costs, he says. One example is that there often is excess and redundant gear in a core network that simply is not being used efficiently. In many cases, core routers only run at 10 percent of their capacity, for example. Improving throughput up to 80 percent or 100 percent offers potentially an order of magnitude better performance from the same equipment.

Likewise, automated provisioning tools can reduce provisioning time by 90 percent or more, he says. And since "time is money," operating cost for some automated operations also can be cut by an order of magnitude.

The point is that Moore's Law, by itself, will not provide the solutions networks require as they keep scaling bandwidth under conditions where revenue does not grow linearly with the new capacity.