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By Mark Lum, independent telecoms consultant

Day 3 brings the end of WDM and a time for delegates to ask each other "What did I learn?", "What was new in 2009?", "What's the big trend?", "Who's up?", and "Who's down?". Some questions can easily be answered by reading newspaper headlines — whilst others are more complex, or working on difficult-to-discern evolutionary timescales. Friends, colleagues and other delegates I've spoken to have a positive view on the conference, in these difficult economic times.

We have all enjoyed hearing the latest 100G developments from many vendors, but your watchful diarist must also report that the operators speaking here at WDM seem to be on different agendas. Deutsche Telekom alone — with some of the highest density routes in Europe — held the 100G banner with a detailed set of requirements and implementation scenarios

National operators such as KPN, Swisscom and Telekom Austria (and also DT) presented their challenges, thoughts and strategies for re-architecting their infrastructure and deploying new OTN WDM elements; handling "legacy" SDH-based services remains a long-term need.

Bharti Airtel, from further afield, reminded us that things are not always as smooth: dust, heat, humidity and an unreliable electric supply provide a much higher stress level for networks. If you're experiencing a high rate of fibre cuts, squeezing all your traffic onto multi-lambda 100G links may not be the wisest strategy! A mesh-based, multi-path protection scheme using lower capacity channels would probably provide a more robust network.

Office consolidation is moving up the agenda, as national operators here express intentions or plans to close local exchange facilities and make use of WDM backhaul — perhaps even WDM-PON — to concentrate active electronics at fewer network locations. Lower opex, improved reliability, reduced power, smaller real-estate: the strategic benefits of such an upheaval can be easily identified, with a serious amount of cost-saving in prospect.

Direct optical routing (IP bypass or router bypass, if you like) has been simmering on the industry agenda for a few years. To a vendor, "IP-Optical integration" means a converged packet optical network element, or DWDM interfaces on routers. However, to operators such as Orange and Telefonica, it means an optimised network architecture based on traffic flows. With operators worried about costs, this issue has now come to the boil: we'll see much more of this.

Alas, there was far more at WDM than I can comfortably even mention. In the FibreSystems Europe Future of Photonic Networks seminar, a focus on power consumption rubbed shoulders with developments in photonic integrated circuits and 100G components.

Today also brought the OIF's global interoperability demonstration to Europe. Linking seven nodes from China Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, KDDI, NTT, Orange Labs, Telecom Italia and Verizon, the OIF showed that Ethernet VPL services can be provisioned, on-demand, across global networks, and supported with end-end service restoration using E-NNI.

Many questions remain as the delegates head homewards, perhaps the most common one: "Will WDM be held in Nice again next year, or return to Cannes?" I tend myself towards Cannes, but like many, have also found Nice to be a refreshing change. Regardless of location, the speakers and contributors at all levels have ensured a remarkable content quality and session engagement: sometimes until 18:30 in the evening. Hope to see you at WDM 2010!

Visit www.optical-transmission.com/wdm for the latest information on WDM 2010.

By Mark Lum, independent telecoms consultant

So here we are at the must-attend 100G showcase, with no fewer than seven vendors jostling for position on the stage in front of a baying crowd*. The only qualification? To have a published field trial with an operator. However, one does not... I leave as an exercise for the alert reader to discover which!

I'll try to encapsulate each trial/vendor in a few highlights, which will doubtless cause trouble for omitting some important aspect — there's no substitute for being here! As the 100G alphabet soup is cooked, I suspect the session will run late.

Alcatel-Lucent: First 100G trial with Verizon 16/11/07. 500 km Tampa-Miami. DQPSK-NRZ/RZ modulation also with 10G channels. Has published 13 R&D papers since 2005. Conclusion: 100G PDM-QPSK (25 Gbaud) with coherent detection and digital post-processing, also compatible with 10G NRZ and 40G.

Ciena: 100G trial with Caltech over 1500 km. Agrees with Alcatel-Lucent on system technology: ADC plus DSP ASICs also photonic integration. 30-50% p.a. traffic growth means capacity exhaust, even 40G will be insufficient in 2012. There will be much secret sauce from different vendors.

Cisco: 1st 100 GbE 802.3ba-based router demo with Comcast (6/08). Key requirement is compatibility with 10G links @ 50 GHz. Conclusion: PM-QPSK modulation (25 Gbaud). Sees 100G in routers for IPoWDM architectures, but also transponders. Vision shows 200G, 400G, 1T, CO-OFDM, software-defined optics.

Ericsson: 112Gbit/s trial with Deutsche Telekom over 633 km including four ROADMs. PM-RZ-DQPSK modulation with fast LiNbO3 polarization tracking plus 10G and 40G neighbouring channels. Conclusion: PM RZ-DQPSK @ 50GHz needing no ADCs or DSP since polarization tracker is used for PMD tolerance. Investigating OFDM, SCM, nQAM.

Huawei: Several options available. OPFDM-DQPSK or OPDM-DQPSK — no ADC/DSP is needed so cost-effective. ePDM-DQPSK provides best performance, >1,000km but is more complex. Market timing is critical, as is ASIC complexity and availability. Sees a five-year delay between 40G and 100G deployments.

Nokia Siemens: 107 Gbit/s trial with AT&T in 2006, 2x 80km direct optical. First CP-QPSK in 2007. 111 Gbit/s trial with Verizon in 2008, 1040 km and mixed 100G, 10G and 40G channels. Believes that coherent CP-DQPSK is the way forward, hero experiments are now finished, and need to make real commercial products.

Nortel: 100G trial with Comcast (3/08), 335km link including ROADM. Many network demos 2008-09, including Verizon 73 km link that could not carry standard 10G. Conclusion: coherent FDM-DP-QPSK (14Gbaud) @ 50GHz. Vision that coherent plus WDM gives next big jump in fibre capacity.

I have the feeling of an industry — at least most of the vendor side — in a hurry, pushed by an invidious mix of public demand from a few high-profile carriers, the prospect of competitive IEEE interfaces, intense vendor competition plus a driving technological rivalry to scale the 100G mountain.

I remain most concerned about gaining sufficient economy of scale, but despite appearances, the industry is largely converged on DP-QPSK with coherent detection. And whilst vendors may be reluctant to highlight it, the OIF's MSA functional standardisation is a critical first step towards economy.

The showcase session has indeed run late and we are now behind schedule: let's see how 100G deployments in production networks fare in the coming years.

[* I mean: an enthusiastic and receptive audience]

By Mark Lum, independent telecoms consultant

Another fresh and sunny morning and a short ride on Nice's next-gen ligne d'azur tram brings me to the Acropolis from my sea-front hotel next to the Marche des Fleurs. It's difficult to juggle my diary duty with chairing duty today, but I can first bring you some notes from yesterday afternoon.

From IDC, we hear that 40G network systems have developed though no fewer than four generations of subsystem technology since 1999 (those with good memories may also remember Nortel's 80G demonstration at ITU's Telecom 1999, a 2x40G system). A decade further on, and we witness at least a handful of live 40G traffic links, mostly in the US, whilst 10G deployments are still increasing.

And as for 100G deployments? There is much talk that 2012 will be the year — but realising that's just over 2 years away, perhaps some collective optimism is at work. We learn that 40G transponder prices are, even now, no better than 4x10G (itself a decreasing target), and I feel it will surely be many years before real economy of scale can be provided at 100G. However, one vendor boldly shows its forecast of 100G deployment exceeding 40G as early as 2012. Tune in to WDM 2012 to find out how things have really progressed!

I quote from www.provence-hideaway.com:

"The Grande Corniche [from Nice to Menton via Monaco] was built under Napoleon's reign and pretty much follows the Roman Aurelian Way. One would wish there were more belvederes with parking facilities, because you want to stop at every turn and admire the views, which extend both seaward and inland. Alas, there are few places where you can stop. Be careful, it is the favourite playground of Formula 1 wannabes, bikers with no fear and sightseeing tourists creeping along in their cars — a potent mixture"!

The similarity with 100G network evolution is surely uncanny (excepting that few fibre networks will have been built in Napoleon's time). WDM is playing the role of sightseeing tourist as the majority of delegates attends the packed standing-room only "100G Showcase", whilst I wonder if anyone is left in the eminently worthy parallel stream. I'll have a rough guide in a separate 100G diary special.

Moving forward in time to this morning, and I encourage the conference to search for economy of scale in optical networks. With internet traffic doubling approx. every 18 months according to several incumbents, we as an industry need to figure out the best solution. I suggest that upgrading to 40G at a cost of 4x10G is hardly a convincing business case — especially if associated traffic revenue is either declining, or non-existent in the first place. And with 10G volume cost reduction just hitting its stride, perhaps 10G will be the real sweet spot for economic high-volume networking for many years to come?

Swisscom presented its strategic plan to phase out its very first SDH network, installed in the early 1990's, and replace it with a next-gen SDH/OTH integrated network. After 20+ operational years, I expect many operators will similarly be looking to replace their original SDH infrastructure in the next five years, so there should be plenty of opportunity for new architectures and network build to handle future traffic projections.

A somewhat abbreviated diary today, and I also need to catch up with highlights from the FibreSystems Europe seminar. Tune in tomorrow!

By Mark Lum, independent telecoms consultant

After a decade in Cannes, IIR's annual WDM conference has moved just along the Cote d'Azur to Nice and its Baie des Anges. We are meeting at the Acropolis — the huge and rather garish alien building beamed down next to Nice Vieux Ville. We are all finding our feet in a new venue, but we have a sun terrace opening from the airy exhibition area and it's a refreshing change from the subterranean depths of the Hilton in Cannes. Welcome to my 2009 conference diary!

We open with a keynote from Orange UK. We have all heard the challenges faced by mobile operators as their rapidly-growing HSPA/3G internet traffic stresses all parts of the network, from backhaul to the converged IP/MPLS core. Orange has adopted an optical offload strategy to deal with the latter, where high-speed internet traffic is logically routed at the edge onto express optical paths, directly to the internet peering point. With this optimisation, internet traffic never traverses the IP/MPLS core and avoids the whole capacity/scale/cost/revenue dilemma.

Optical bypass has been much talked about, often on a per-node basis, but it seems to me that this type of network-wide optimisation — with a rapid payback — holds much future promise. If we are indeed to have on-demand video delivered to consumers on mobile devices or 3G-PCs, mobile (and fixed) operators need to get with the program, if they expect to be profitable.

On the conference agenda, I'm looking forward to the "100G showcase" this afternoon, where 6 vendors who have supported operator field trials will present their systems. I'll have more on this session in a special 100G diary. Coming up tomorrow is the "Future of Photonics Networks" session, led by FibreSystems Europe and including a focus on photonic integration. Also we have the OIF's interoperability demonstration, more on this too. And of course this evening, WDM's signature cocktail reception on the sun terrace to catch up with both new and long-standing industry colleagues.

Aside from the headline 100G linespeeds, all-optical technology continues its advancement: fully tunable sources, optical path tracing, fast adaptable transponders, dynamic PMD compensation, advanced modulation, photonic restoration, digital post-processing — and more. A host of technologies and techniques attempt to wrestle a badly-behaved analogue optical channel into submission, so operators can run high-availability digital services over it. But as Belgacom ICS asks: "When will this be commercially available?" which I interpret as asking "Great science projects, but when will it be affordable?" To me, all-optical still seems a very specialised type of network, when perhaps we should be figuring out how to get some economy of scale into optical network operations.

IP—optical integration was also examined by Telefonica International Wholesale. Its objective is to leverage next-gen optical functions to reduce total capex (optical+IP) of IP networks — IP hardware is taking an increasing proportion of IP product costs and this needs to be rebalanced for scalability. Music to an optical conference's collective ears! For an operator, such an approach requires a high co-ordination between design, operations and maintenance teams. Even simple strategies such as protection at the optical layer, rather than the IP layer, result in substantial capex savings. In common with Orange, a careful analysis of traffic flow is the starting point, allowing a rational removal of intermediate nodes.

So a very interesting first morning. I'm off to look around the vendor exhibition area; WDM has proper exhibition-style booths this year, not just tabletops. It's all change here, and perhaps also a time to consider changes in the next decade of optical networking.

Tune in to WDM Nice tomorrow!Visit the event here www.optical-transmission.com/wdm

By Mark Lum, independent telecoms consultant

Excuse me for being parochial, but being British and chairing at this week's FTTx Summit leaves me feeling somewhat depressed, as I wait for my flight home from Munich. Doubly depressed, if I tell you that I first saw FTTH with BT's early deployment in Milton Keynes back in 1984, I think it was (as a young graduate engineer, I should hasten to add!)

I can report that in the intervening 25 years, the UK has hardly advanced, whilst the rest of Europe — and large parts of the world, too — has marched on, now reaching mainstream fibre deployment in many countries. A brilliant constellation of technologies, investments and businesses — open and closed access, municipal and incumbent players, FTTH and FTTB, P2P and PON architectures, private and state investment, individuals and corporations — is testament to the vision and human ingenuity to pioneer, find the successful and make this thing happen commercially over the past decade.

And as for the UK? Sadly, we are a "no-show" as far as the FTTH league tables are concerned. Many would say that we are the donkey cart of the information superhighway... Given up before we even try to deploy fibre to the home... Several fibres short of a muesli breakfast... Flatlined in the FTTH casualty department: it's just embarrassing!

I fully appreciate BT's market position, but it's latest announced plan is largely a "mend and make do" FTTC strategy. Luckily, there are a few green shoots showing from other initiatives.

For a country where Kao and Hockham first conceived using optical fibre as a communication medium (at ITT's STL Harlow labs in 1966) this is a disappointing situation, quite frankly. One might hope that we would be in a more enlightened position. Perhaps the UK government's imminent Digital Britain report will realise where the rest of the world is headed, help jump-start the country and shake us out of fibre torpor. Let's see.

Now I have that off my chest, I'll gather my wider thoughts and look to report on a few highlights from what was an extremely cheerful, forward-looking and optimistic FTTx Summit. Ironically, next year's event is planned for London! For many countries and people, fibre is coming home — those involved couldn't be happier.

By Mark Lum, independent telecoms consultant

I'm here at Packet Transport Networks in Vienna, and a good conference turnout reflects the growing importance of packet transport. I'm sure there'll be much of interest over the next few days.

But in my first blog post for fibresystems.org, I'm startled by a statistic from Huawei comparing a national mobile operator's IP network layer with its SDH layer. We are told that:

• 95% of network element failures are down to the IP equipment, with just 5% from SDH;
• 66% of network failures derive from the IP layer, with 33% from SDH.

It's hardly a happy comparison, but we are further told that the SDH layer had three times as much equipment supporting 30 times more connections. It seems that the fault incidence from IP is out of all proportion to its deployment volume, not to mention the increased opex and staff costs.

Several possible conclusions occur to me (I'm happy to consider other suggestions!)...

• we expect this type of anti-IP propaganda from the dumb-pipe transport people!
• this is just a one-off extreme outlying example;
• the operator must be using the wrong brand of router;
• the IP technicians are not properly certified and need more training;
• the operator should transform its network with a new architecture;
• IP/MPLS is still a new technology and can only improve in the future;
• there's nothing we can do: IP is more complex by definition — get with the program!

No-one is suggesting that SDH and IP are interchangeable, neither as technology nor in function. But as bandwidth consumption continues to grow — both packet and (still) TDM-based — we need to figure out the best way to provide lower cost packetised networks by an order of magnitude.

There's lots of discussion here about MPLS-TP, even as IETF and ITU-T try to decide exactly what that is with heated opinions. Based on this datapoint, I think they have their work cut out to define a packet transport technology that will improve carriers' economics, rather than make them worse.

fibresystems.org is delighted to welcome Jeff Ferry, Director of Communications for Infinera, and a former journalist, as a guest blogger this week. Jeff will be reporting on the OIDA's Photonic Integration Forum, which is the first industry conference dedicated to the commercial development of photonic integration technology. As such it marks an important step forward for this technology area. The conference has been co-organised by OIDA and Infinera.

The conference attracted an impressive 60 experts in photonic integration, says Jeff, filling the room to capacity at the picturesque Monterey Hotel and Spa, perched up against, and partially built out over, Monterey Bay, 100 miles south of San Francisco. So without further ado, over to Jeff...

Tuesday, 7 October, OIDA Photonic Integration Forum, Day One
By Jeff Ferry

Photonic integration

The two most interesting themes of the conference's first day were scalability and power consumption. The debate over scalability turned into a discussion of integration on indium phosphide vs. integration on silicon. The indium phosphide (InP) supporters, led by Infinera, have the benefit of having large numbers of photonic integrated circuits deployed by real customers. According to the chart shown by Infinera co-founder Dave Welch, Infinera has accumulated 101 million hours of PICs running in live networks without a single failure, with each PIC pair integrating 60 devices. That translates to a FIT rate (reliability measure) of 9, which is better than many single lasers and modulators in the market today. "Everything gets better when you integrate, reliability, yield, performance, and costs," said Welch.

Later in the day, Infinera PIC engineer Randy Salvatore provided some insight into how Infinera has achieved its reliability and yields, describing the six stage statistical process control methodology that Infinera borrowed from the silicon industry and applied at its PIC fab. According to Salvatore, when compared to silicon chips and specifically Intel's well-documented history, Infinera has in the last two years made progress equivalent to six years' worth of Intel progress, moving from defect density numbers equivalent to Intel's in 1987 to numbers comparable to Intel in 1993. This, said Salvatore, is the silicon learning curve successfully applied to InP.

Professor John Bowers of University of California at Santa Barbara emerged as the most charismatic advocate of silicon photonics. He showed slides on his UCSB team's progress in several areas, including high-quality photodetectors made from silicon germanium, hybrid lasers made from a combination of III-V materials and silicon, and on the manufacturing side, they've reduced the time required to bond the two materials together from 12 hours to as low as 10 minutes — an important step towards making the technology practical, reliable, and commercial. Bowers said that silicon CMOS technology makes it possible to reduce device size to the point where it becomes possible to get as many as 125,000 die sites (i.e. chips) on an 8 inch wafer. All those developments go towards making silicon photonics PICs more cost-effective than any other material, said Bowers. "Infinera is doing a great job, but the potential for lots more scaling exists," Bowers said. "The platform for VLSI PICs exists. Millions of devices [on a chip] is possible."

Friday 26 September 2008, Day Four, Carrier Ethernet World Congress, Berlin

TRAFFIC CONTROL PROBLEM CAUSES NON-DETERMINISTIC PLANE MANAGEMENT
By Mark Lum

It's the fourth and final day of CEWC, somewhat diminished in quantity of delegates, if not in quality, and your diarist arrives to find himself — and more importantly, Verizon Business — in hot water for yesterday's apparently contentious diary.

In case any readers missed seeing that, and in order to cool the water, I will more clearly re-state Verizon's bold comment as "There is no Carrier Ethernet access service standardisation". A rather evident situation, it seems to me! And one that is being addressed by important developments such as the MEF's E-NNI and wholesale access interconnect, Ofcom's Ethernet ALA requirements, and numerous other related standards and carrier activities that delegates have heard about during the week. The big question: how much will carriers want to align the very services that they compete on? A difficult area, certainly, but the industry's prognosis is positive and further progress should be made over the coming year.

Today's focus is "Future Ethernet" and whilst the headline "MPLS versus PBT" technology war has subsided, there is plenty to keep the remaining delegates interested, including presentations from: Cisco, Ericsson, Huawei, Juniper, Nortel and closing with a panel debate on options for Ethernet control and management and a synchronisation masterclass from Semtech.

Alert delegates will have heard several speakers mention SyncE — Synchronous Ethernet — during the week and be aware that synchronisation is a key requirement for mobile, and other, applications. As technical editor for several timing/sync ETSI and ITU standards during the 1990's, I can tell you this is rather an arcane subject, but one of critical importance for Carrier Ethernet and packet transport evolution. For experts only, perhaps?

Away from the bright spotlight of the opening days, we hear considered presentations helping to put the various Carrier Ethernet technologies into some perspective. Including a full acronymic spectrum encompassing GELS, T-MPLS, PBB-TE, BGP, MPLS-TE, IGP, CL-PS, VPWS, LDP, MPLS-TP, PLSB, CO-PS, PBB/MPLS, VPLS, and too many more to list.

MPLS-TP has received vocal support during CEWC as the way to simplify packet transport, and delegates learn now that 18 technical drafts have been identified to date, requiring development and agreement. Proponents tell us that they foresee a dynamic control plane, and also that carriers' existing TDM-oriented management systems will not, in fact, be suitable. On the face of it, it seems that complexity is needed to deliver simplicity! Your diarist has been variously informed that MPLS-TP standardisation may take 9, 12, 18 months or even 2 years. Let's see how the progress goes.

Well, that's it for another year: there is more at CEWC than can possibly be written about in a few diary pages, but I hope you've enjoyed a few glimpses here. Thanks for reading! Meanwhile, I and other UK residents are hoping that the Heathrow air traffic control problems of yesterday have been resolved, and we will find our way home in a deterministic fashion. I'm sure there is some telecom analogy to be drawn, but I leave that as an exercise for the reader.

Carrier Ethernet World — complete with MEF technical briefings and EANTC equipment interop showcase — travels to Singapore this November for its Asia-Pacific debut edition. In conclusion from the MEF's official congress, notable progress has been made in scaling Carrier Ethernet and the market looks set to continue its strong growth in the coming year. See you in Berlin again for Carrier Ethernet World Congress 2009.

Read more of the CEWC Daily Digest, Day Four >

Thursday 25 September 2008, Carrier Ethernet World Congress, Berlin

HEGEL'S DIALECTICS GIVE WAY IN THE SHADOW OF BRANDENBURG'S GATE
By Mark Lum

Brandenburg Gate

Berlin's iconic Brandenburger Tor and Reichstag are literally just around the corner from the Maritim hotel and it's a cool and sunny walk out to a breakfast cafe before today's conference, to consider the depth of history present in this magnificent city.

A far cry indeed from the technical and business discussions of this week. Carriers tell me they are heartily glad that the heat of the recent technology wars is now dissipating: perhaps "storm in a teacup" would be the most polite verdict! Operators have bigger fish to fry, and are happy to still have a choice of Ethernet and MPLS technologies and vendors to support applications such as IPTV and access — today's principal topics. I learn that residents in Slovenia are offered by T-2: a 14 Euro/month 10M/10M broadband service plus 140 channels of IPTV at 12 Euro/month using Carrier Ethernet. Perhaps one day, we may all be so fortunate!

At the main event, it's something of a slow start, as many delegates are perhaps in a leisurely mood after being treated to vendor hospitality alongside a large display of vintage cars. I can only say that latecomers missed a fascinating exposition from MTN Nigeria, the first of today's service provider speakers including Belgacom ICS, BT Openreach, Deutsche Telekom, Magyar Telekom, NoaNet, Verizon Business and Virgin Media.

A case study in modern mobile network growth, MTN has grown to support 19 million subscribers in just 7 years, including a substantial proportion of 3G. Building entirely on PDH microwave access/backhaul with an SDH optical and microwave backbone, MTN continues to build about 180 new sites per month. In MTN's view evolution to Ethernet is certain, but it must be a gradual implementation whose starting time is still yet to be decided (perhaps somewhat disheartening to hear for the cheerleaders of Ethernet backhaul).

Over in Ofcom's parallel seminar on Ethernet Active Line Access, I find a sizeable number of delegates deliberating a fundamental question: how best to ensure competitive NGA (next generation access) using Ethernet? High-level speakers from the European Commission, HanseNet, IFNL, KPN plus industry bodies Broadband Forum, ITU and MEF are presenting their insights and thoughts. Ofcom is seeking to catalyse standardisation of Ethernet Access in the UK, perhaps beyond, and has published a new regulatory consultation on technical requirements.

I was relieved to hear one speaker — thank you, BT Openreach — to at least mention Green Telecoms, and the need to reduce power consumption. Any delegate who received a free sauna from the 16-rack CEWC interop showcase can relate to that. Trend-setting carriers such as BT and Verizon, are leading the way in this area, and I trust that others will follow in the next year.

Verizon Business gain today's "open and honest" award. Perhaps emboldened by its award as MEF European service provider of the year for business innovation, they stated "there is no such thing as Carrier Ethernet: there is no standardisation". I think they have a point! In the good old days, you knew exactly what an E1 or STM-1 circuit was: the specs were laid out, with no deviation. These days, an "Ethernet access service" can mean almost anything. Flexibility is surely a good thing, but perhaps not if you're a competitive carrier trying to offer consistent services around the world.

Looking back on today, it feels that the conference has moved a long way from the Kompella's "Purple Line" and Hegelian Dialectics of Day 1. In the carriers' world, the principal challenge is growing fancy new applications using cranky old access networks. It was always thus! But from Berlin, Carrier Ethernet is rising to the challenge as it continues to scale in momentum.

As the exhibition packs up around me, join me at the last day of Carrier Ethernet World Congress 2008, tomorrow.

Read more of the CEWC Daily Digest, Day Three >

Wednesday 24 September 2008, Carrier Ethernet World Congress, Berlin

AN INCONVENIENT TECHNOLOGY AND CARRIER ETHERNET MATURITY
By Mark Lum

Day 2 at CEWC, and with a full exhibition area and a streamed conference agenda concurrently covering mobile applications and business services, delegates have more than enough to keep themselves busy. There's a notable buzz and much enthusiasm. New media is much in evidence and several speakers — your diarist included — have been captured on vox-pops by a roving camera.

Yesterday's closing panel session of 8 leading vendors — plus 1 vacant chair! — presented a surprisingly united front that MPLS is the chosen route to support Carrier Ethernet services and applications. Despite the singular support of Extreme Networks for an Ethernet/PBB/PBT/PBB-TE approach, all other vendors were determined that MPLS is the only true way forward for Carrier Ethernet services.

A conclusion reinforced by BT which presented an update on its 21CN program without mentioning PBT, a key feature of recent years. 21CN has been "slightly re-focused" to support new services based on customer requirements, rather than PSTN replacement. BT now has an ambitious program to expand its Ethernet services coverage from 106 UK POPs to 600 by May 2009.

And yet, in a timely newswire yesterday, we see an announcement from the US that Sprint has selected Ethernet/PBT for their mobile backhaul applications. Reminding us that this, after all, is what PBT was originally created for, rather than a replacement for MPLS. One should never manage business strategy by press release, but perhaps other carriers will also inconveniently choose Ethernet/PBB/PBT solutions for applications such as access and backhaul.

Whilst there has been much talk of simplifying MPLS at lower cost, your diarist has seen few concrete results in this area. Sprint is said to focus on operational excellence, so its selection of Ethernet/PBT for backhaul will doubtless receive closer attention from the industry at large.

So enough technology, already! Carrier Ethernet is a maturing market, signified by innovation moving away from raw technology towards operational and management areas such as service automation. And also, it must be said, signified by continuing supplier consolidation.

Today's conference has focused on mobile applications — where the need for future Ethernet-based microwave and backhaul systems is certain (if only to save the operational costs of cabling in the RAN and on a longer timescale than many seem to expect). And also business services — where much effort is focused on ensuring that Carrier Ethernet services meets enterprise requirements. "Enterprise Ethernet", anyone?

VPLS very much to the fore, as might be expected, and an increasing interest in Ethernet over Copper. This is surely the major opportunity in front of Carrier Ethernet: the long-term transition of a huge number of private/leased line TDM services to Ethernet. But first, the industry will need to sort out the best way to support Connection-Oriented Ethernet services. Back to inconvenient technology again!

Across the topic streams, there were over 20 sessions today: surely more than any delegate can rationally assimilate! Service provider presentations from Belgacom, Cable & Wireless, Orange, Telecom Italia, Teragate, THUS and Verizon help to keep our feet on the ground.

Many delegates here relate an extremely busy day, characterised by meetings and discussions, punctuated with presentations of choice. Tomorrow in Berlin promises to bring more of the same as we focus on access, IPTV and packet-optical; plus a special Ofcom-led seminar on Ethernet Active Line Access.

Read more of the CEWC Daily Digest, Day Two >