Is 1 Tbps The Next Optical Network Standard?

For residential and corporate users just getting comfortable with 100 Mbps broadband, the need for bandwidths in the Terabit per second range seem very far in the future. Not so for network operators. The discussion is getting lively right now as to whether the next optical networking standard speed will be 400 Gbps or 1 Tbps.

What’s driving the need for new higher standards? It’s the inevitable march of technology from Kbps to Mbps to Gbps and soon to Tbps. The last lively discussion was whether to move up from 10 Gbps to 40 Gbps or go all the way to 100 Gbps. You’ll notice that the new proposed standards are 10x or one order of magnitude above those levels.

That makes sense because there is something of a “Moore’s Law” that applies to bandwidth as well as computer processing. Moore’s Law, formulated by Gordon Moore of Intel, proposed that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit would double every year. Despite the fact that no one knew exactly how to do this more than a increment or two into the future, technology advancements have come along on schedule to keep Moore’s law viable for decades. The latest announcement of 3D transistors looks to keep the processing improvements going for the foreseeable future.

What about bandwidth? There is a prediction called Butter’s Law formulated by Gerald Butters of Bell Labs that says the amount of data coming from an optical fiber doubles every nine months. This is complemented by Nielsen’s Law, from consultant Jakob Nielsen, that says that bandwidth available to users increases 50% per year.

Based on this, getting standards in place for faster optical networks needs to proceed quickly. There’s little time to waste before we start talking about 10 and 100 Tbps networks and thinking ahead to Petabit per second networks.

What on Earth is driving these requirements? Is it simply technology gone wild on its own development cycle or is there a real need for such bandwidths. If there isn’t now, there soon will be. It can be summed up in one word: Video.

Video traffic now dominates the Internet. It’s said the Netflix alone may be the largest single application. Netflix might have been first out of the chute when it comes to streaming video content on a massive scale, but it won’t be in that position alone for long. Most new televisions and set top boxes have Internet connectivity built-in. The same is true for gaming consoles, which also make nice video set top boxes.

But don’t most people get their video programming over the air, through cable or satellite dishes? They do for now because those are the mature technologies. The bit switch from analog to digital OTA broadcasting has had a unexpected side effect. Having to buy new sets and make tricky antenna adjustments to receive the digital broadcasts has caused some TV viewers to rethink their options. The latest trend is to forego over the air broadcasts in favor of Netflix and video downloads directly from the Internet.

Far from being horrified, the FCC is considering auctioning off more of the TV spectrum to wireless broadband services. Smartphones and now tablet computers, particularly the iPad, are creating an almost insatiable demand for 3G and 4G bandwidth to support high definition video. There’s a proposal being floated to allow broadcasters to share frequencies taking advantage of the multiple program capability of each channel.

Likewise, Ethernet over Copper and DOCSIS Cable are easily capable of 100 Mbps broadband but start to strain above that. Further technical advances may push the upper limit on copper delivery but it’s just a matter of time before we have fiber to every premises. Verizon is leading the way with its FiOS passive optical service to the home and most medium and large business that don’t have fiber yet are taking a hard look at the lower cost of Gigabit Ethernet, where available.

How about your business? Are you feeling pinched by bandwidth services that are no longer as capable as they were when you installed them? You should know that business bandwidth prices have dropped significantly in the last few years, fueled by new technology developments and high levels of competition in metro areas. You may be able to get a lot more for your bandwidth dollar than you think. If you haven’t checked in awhile, this is a good time to get prices and availability on fiber optic bandwidth services. You may be surprised about what is available today.

Cisco's New Terabit Monster Router

Cisco's new edge router, the ASR 9000, is upping the ante on network bandwidth. This beast will deliver 6.4 Tbps when fully loaded at 400 Gbps per slot. Who needs a router this powerful? Probably not your mom and pop retail store. But they might be using services downstream from a carrier who has installed an ASR 9000. Why the need for even more speed? One word: Video.

Video not only killed the radio star, it's pretty much killing service providers too. The Internet was conceived and built in an era when text was king. As technology and applications evolved, it managed to scale up with the move to more visual Web pages. But video is taxing the ability of service providers to add bandwidth as fast as users glomp onto more and more video content. It's YouTube, certainly. But it's also Web pages that embed video reports instead of text, and TV producers that see the Internet as another medium for distributing their programs.

So bad has it gotten, that major ISPs have taken to impose download limits on what was once unlimited broadband. They're easing into this by setting the cutoff point high enough so that only rabid video downloaders are likely to get kicked off the network. But today's rabid downloaders are merely early adopters of the way we'll all want our content delivered eventually. It's going to be high definition large screen full length video at will. Once this genie gets completely out of the bottle, satellite and cable are going to have to scramble to avoid becoming as limited as over-the-air TV channels when it comes to program delivery. If we had the set top boxes, programming guides and motivated content producers today, the Internet would be brought to its knees overnight.

That's what Cisco is trying to address with the ASR 9000. What might appear to be overkill for many edge router applications is going to be a normal requirement sooner than we think. In fact, the ASR 9000 is targeted at video service providers, such as cable companies, and also at mobile providers. These include cell phone companies that are starting to push mobile video and likely WiMAX operators who will be dealing with video-craving users sooner than they may think.

The other trend that Cisco is positioning for is the move from legacy time division network technology to Ethernet and MPLS. The ASR9000 has built-in capabilities for IPoDWDM or IP over Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing as a next-generation network core technology.

You don't really need Terabit transport requirements to take advantage of Ethernet and MPLS in your business. Metro Ethernet offers cost savings over traditional DS3 bandwidth and can often be provisioned over copper pair rather than fiber optic cable for bandwidths below 50 Mbps. MPLS networks are fast becoming the preferred method to interconnect multiple business locations.

Is your network ready for an upgrade? Take advantage of our VAR Network to find authorized dealers for Cisco routers and other professional grade network equipment and services.

Bandwidth Multiplication to the Rescue

If you think that you feel constrained by your WAN or Internet connection bandwidth, imagine the dilemma the service providers are in. Just when they thought that they'd invested enough in trenching fiber, expanding network capability and upgrading router speeds, along comes a killer app like video. In this case "killer" means bandwidth killer. When you've found that your bandwidth margin is much less than you expected, what can you do besides start over? How about speeding up what you've got?

Comcast and Cisco are testing a way to do just that. They've managed to multiply Comcast's fiber infrastructure by a factor of x10 using the latest in DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing) transmission equipment. That's 100 Gigabit Ethernet, 100 GigE.

What's important about this is that the setup used Comcast's existing fiber optic backbone that runs between Philadelphia, PA and McLean, VA. No new fiber was trenched. Instead, fibers already in the ground simply carried more data per wavelength.

Simply might be an understatement. The terminal equipment is Cisco's CRS-1 Carrier Routing System. It's part of Cisco's IP Next Generation Network architecture that scales to... are you ready for this ...92 Tbps of switching capacity. Yes, 92 Terabits per second of traffic. All of a sudden 100 Gigabits per second seems like the slow lane. But for long haul network operators 100 GigE will do just fine for now, thank you. It should be awhile before users start demanding Terabit connections. At least that's what everyone hopes.

Video streaming and downloads are now the majority of packets on the Internet. The Internet may have started as an information service envisioned as primarily text or text plus graphics. But the definition of information content has expanded to include voice, data acquisition, and high definition video. Video over IP is no longer the coming thing. It's here. From YouTube to TV program segments, to full length television programs and movies, video is sopping up as much bandwidth as it can get. In that context 100 GigE delivery networks are no longer an extravagance. They're the next benchmark.

Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) advancements offer a means to increase network capacity by upgrading terminal equipment and using the same fiber strands. It comes down to more densely packing individual wavelengths using more accurate and stable lasers. Beyond that, network operators will have to press more dark fiber strands into service to multiply their available bandwidth.

Transmission efficiency improvements haven't been limited to fiber optic networks. The buried asset of twisted pair copper is also being asked to transport higher bitrates by upgrading terminal equipment to improved modulation techniques and active interference cancellation. It's common now to be able to get 10 Mbps and even 100 Mbps Ethernet services delivered over copper from nearby carrier POPs (Points of Presence) using lines once thought to be limited to T1 levels of 1.5 Mbps.

Bandwidth multiplication on both fiber and copper transmission lines has lead to the availability of higher bandwidths at lower prices for business users, and residential customers as well.