If ever a technology epitomized the hype and unrealistic expectations of the telecoms boom, it was 40G transmission. Even as wild-eyed advocates in the vendor community were preaching the benefits - long-haul network systems with smaller footprints, lower power requirements and fewer wavelengths to manage - the precipitous decline of the optical-comms market in late 2001 and 2002 brought it home that 40G was a proposition several years ahead of any credible market opportunity. Fast forward to 2005, though, and it appears that the wilderness years might just be coming to an end for 40G. According to Current Analysis, an international IT and telecoms consultancy, 40G is once again receiving the carriers' attention, driven by the unprecedented capacity requirements created by wide-scale DSL and PON roll-outs, the increased availability of 40G router interfaces and the fact that the extra 10G capacity lying idle on many installed long-haul systems is becoming a less significant barrier to deployment over time.
Right now, 40G is on the verge of an early-adoption cycle, with full-scale implementation at least another two years away. But second time around, says David Dunphy, an optical infrastructure specialist at Current Analysis, component and system vendors are going to have to figure out what the best value proposition is for 40G - i.e. how to address the opex pain-points of carriers in exchange for reasonable and competitive capex. "Hype 40G beyond credibility again, and you lose credibility," he explains. "Realistic positioning of new technologies works better when you are dealing with well informed customers, and with 40G having become one of the older 'new' technologies out there, service operators are already very familiar with its shortcomings... and the economic drivers providing incentive for its adoption."
Of course, Dunphy's advice on product positioning is equally prescient for any fibre-optic developer seeking to make the transition from early commercial promise to mainstream volume deployment. The emerging component/module technologies featured in this month's special report on photonic innovation are a case in point (see Photonic innovations move into the mainstream). Liquid-crystal devices, for example, now carry live traffic in telecoms networks, their ability to electro-optically manipulate light transmission making them ideal for dynamically reconfigurable network elements. Polymer components, meanwhile, are lining up to meet the needs of the broadband-access market: low-cost, high-volume devices for fibre-to-the-home installations. And long-wavelength vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers are already being designed into transceiver modules that could transform the enterprise arena by ramping the bandwidth of legacy multimode-fibre installations.
In each case, progress towards mainstream market acceptance looks encouraging. This will doubtless continue at the European Conference and Exhibition on Optical Communications (ECOC) in Glasgow this month. New product announcements, in-depth conference papers and, most important, face-to-face conversations with prospective customers at trade shows all contribute to the success of any emerging technology or new product. Perception is what matters. The task for companies exhibiting their wares at ECOC is to recognize that robust advocacy still has its place, but so too does a believable story.
• This article originally appeared in FibreSystems Europe in association with LIGHTWAVE Europe September 2005 p5.