Special vs Custom vs Standard? Choosing the Building Blocks-7

Continuing from last week, let us dig deeper into the IP – Optics split.

Let us start by acknowledging that IP is all pervasive. That IP is the God of telecommunications and IT. No one can survive without it any more. That IP is where traffic begins and ends. That IP is necessary if one has to consider any form for network connectivity. But IP is not the only thing that is needed for communications. Given the rate at which the data is growing, we need high speed optics to complement the IP.

There are many places in the network where IP can directly ride an Optical Ethernet interface and just needs plain fiber cable. In-Building networks and some of the in-campus infrastructure does not need specialized optical infrastructure. But as we start adding distances and multiple interfaces, a need of a sophisticated optical infrastructure is required. If fiber is not abundant or is costly, the optical systems required to support the data traffic become very complex and are best not integrated with the IP boxes. Case in point is the submarine systems. There is a lot of specialization on the optics side that is required to build such networks and combining that with packet may not yield any benefits. We must continue to design these two systems as two layers. Future may hold a different course but today the right choice of building blocks on the submarine systems is a separate optical network and a IP network that rides over the optical infra.

Next week we will examine the metro network and the innovation that is affecting the building blocks there. So stay tuned.