Some will choose "and"
Stephen M. Hardy
Editor in Chief
When you work strictly within the confines of a single technology, it`s easy to have your view of the world limited by that technology`s boundaries. For example, now that the communications market worldwide finally requires the high bandwidth that fiber optics has always stood ready to deliver, it might be tempting to see the future as a fiber nirvana. Sure, intellectually you know that certain Luddites will ensure that copper never disappears completely, and there are enough people in love with their mobile phones and beepers to keep wireless companies in existence for some time to come. But, really, I mean people are just gobbling up fiber-optic components, cables, systems, and associated test equipment like never before. We`re talking about all-optical networks, for gosh sakes. Heck, even enterprise network managers finally seem to see a glimpse of fiber in their futures beyond backbone applications. (Yes, I`m talking about fiber in the horizontal, fiber-to-the-desk--seriously, in our lifetimes, I swear!). Who in the fiber-optics community could be blamed for having their view of the world swept along in a stream of light pulses?
It is for these people that this month`s issue is meant as a reality check. (Of course, we expect the more clear-eyed among our readers will find it useful, too.) The spread of fiber from long-haul transport backbones, through the metropolitan area, into the local loop, and on to your desk looks more inevitable everyday--but it`s an evolution, not a revolution. Much as we might wish it were otherwise, service providers and network managers are not ripping out their current infrastructures wholesale, nor are they canceling all their orders for more copper, more satellite dishes, or more radios. That means that as fiber marches closer to your desktop computer, it frequently will be deployed side-by-side with other media. And thus we have the genesis of this month`s Special Report theme, "Hybrid Networks."
Of course, there`s one brand of hybrid network that`s already well established--the hybrid fiber/coaxial-cable network. This mainstay of the cable-TV industry is the platform by which cable modem access to the Internet and other multimedia services will be delivered to homes around the world. This type of hybrid network is becoming increasingly ubiquitous; according to Corning Inc., cable-TV companies bought more fiber than any other type of communications carrier in the United States last year. We`ve covered these kinds of networks frequently in the past. They`ll be a recurring topic of our new "Broadband" column, which I hope you`ve already discovered and enjoyed.
But they won`t be covered in this month`s Special Report (wait for November, when we`ll treat "Fiber and Video"). Instead, this issue focuses on some of the newer or less visible applications where fiber is being paired with other media. For example, fiber has found a niche in satellite earth stations, where its ability to carry video streams over greater distances (and with greater security) than traditional coaxial cabling is making the jobs of broadcasters, the military, and other users significantly easier.
Fiber`s most natural pairing, however, is with copper. This type of hybrid networking is occurring with increasing frequency at the enterprise level, as network managers look to ease fiber into their networks while continuing to leverage as much of their existing copper infrastructure as possible. This issue looks at such applications and the new generation of media converters that have appeared to make such networking possible.
Of course, it`s easy for a fiber fan to read about these applications--they`re the necessary rest stops on the road to the fiber future. But while these types of hybrid networks arise as fiber insinuates itself into applications traditionally the exclusive domain of other media, other mixed-infrastructure networks represent the flip side of that coin. As you`ll read in our case history about a new network in Puerto Rico, hybrid-network architectures are also appearing in applications traditionally dominated by fiber. Some carriers have chosen to use Synchronous Optical Network radios--that`s right, radios--to augment their fiber-optic networks.
What does this prove? As we progress into the future, fiber should continue to be the medium of choice for a wider variety of applications. But that choice may not represent an "either/or" dilemma. Some will choose "and."