Panelists in a Lightwave webcast July 14 agreed that the advent of comparatively economical 100-Gbps technology will affect the demand for 40-Gbps in carrier optical networks. However, they also agreed that it would be two years – at least – before such 100G systems are available. Given carrier capital expenditure constraints, the intervening two or more years should provide plenty of opportunity for 40-Gbps sales, they concluded.
Mark Lutkowitz, co-founder and principal at market research and analysis firm Telecom Pragmatics, moderated the webcast, entitled “Will 100G kill 40G?” Panelists included:
- Kevin Cackovic, senior strategic marketing manager within the Communications Business Unit at Altera
- Francesco Caggioni, director of strategic marketing and PLM for transport products and technology at Applied Micro
- Gilles Garcia, director of marketing, Communications Business Unit, Xilinx, Inc.
- Sam Greenholtz, co-founder and analyst at Telecom Pragmatics
- William Szeto, CTO, terrestrial applications, at Xtera Communications
The panelists noted that consideration of 40G versus 100G opportunities needed to be placed in the context of a variety of applications, from long haul to metro to data center and enterprise. Gracia noted that data centers tend to adopt higher-speed transmission options more quickly than carriers, and therefore predicted that the networks within data centers may run more quickly than the pipes linking them together in the short term.
But how short “short term” might be was a matter of disagreement among the panelists. No one predicted widespread adoption of 100-Gbps before 2013, but several panelist felt that date too optimistic.
The webcast covered the factors that would influence the timing of 100-Gbps technology deployment, the market potential for 40-Gbps coherent technology versus the current generation of direct detect approaches, as well as a discussion of enabling technologies. The webcast is available for viewing from the Lightwave webcast archives.
For more information on high-speed transmission systems and suppliers, visit the Lightwave Buyers Guide.