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OPTICAL TECHNOLOGIES,
COMMUNICATIONS

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MARCH/APRIL 2013

VOLUME 30 NO. 2

ANALYSIS WORLDWIDE

WWW.LIGHTWAVEONLINE.COM

EDITORIAL /// Whats

The
6
promise
12 SDN moves from hype
& perils
to reality
Insert
your
digital
edition
here.
of silicon
photonics
on the menu

By STEPHEN HARDY

INTERVIEW /// Richard Mack

Fiber in Europe bucks

economic trends

Software-defined networking
will not only change the
way data-center networks
operate, but transform
carrier networks as well.
By JIM THEODORAS

17 Superchannels, flex-grid,
multilayer switching key
developments for next-gen
transport networks

Easily browse all back issues.

By STEPHEN HARDY

Is silicon photonics all

its cracked up to be?
And if you arent working
on it, are you doomed?

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APPLICATIONS, AND INDUSTRY

Click pages to view

thumbnails of each
page and browse
through the entire issue.

Theres

PAGE 9

Big pipes wont be enough

in the future. Youll also need
an efficient way to fill them.
By GEOFF BENNETT AND SERGE MELLE

22 Influencing IEEE 802.3

Ethernet innovation
The standards makers within
IEEE are working hard to
develop the right specifications
for tomorrows needs. But they
need input from end users to do it.
By DAN DOVE

Finally, FTTH
blooms in Europe,
but not everywhere
BY PAULINE RIGBY,

Optical Reflection

The number of FTTH/

FTTB connections in
Europe is expected to
double in the next five years.
Its already becoming apparent
who will be winners and losers
in Europes fiber future.

New submarine
cable systems
target Latin America
BY KURT RUDERMAN ,

Lightwave European correspondent

More than a decade after

submarine cable operators
connected Latin Americas
major markets, the region is
witnessing another wave of
submarine cable construction
that could make it the leading
undersea market in 2013.

Ethernet runs out of steam

BY JIM THEODORAS ,
ADVA Optical Networking

It turns out the reason for

the biggest shift in the
laws of Ethernet since its
inception iswait for itIt is hard.

OPTICAL TECHNOLOGIES,
COMMUNICATIONS

Theres

FO
F
Oo
nli
MORE INFO
online

APPLICATIONS, AND INDUSTRY

MARCH/APRIL 2013

VOLUME 30 NO. 2

WWW.LIGHTWAVEONLINE.COM

The
promise
& perils
of silicon
photonics

ANALYSIS WORLDWIDE

EDITORIAL /// Whats

on the menu
By STEPHEN HARDY

INTERVIEW /// Richard Mack

Fiber in Europe bucks

economic trends

12 SDN moves from hype

to reality

Is silicon photonics all

its cracked up to be?
And if you arent working
on it, are you doom
med?
PAGE
PA
GE 9

BY PAULINE RIGBY,

Optical Reflection

The number of FTTH/

FTTB connections in
Europe is expected to
double in the next fve years.
Its already becoming apparent
who will be winners and losers
in Europes fber future.

Software-defined networking
will not only change the
way data-center networks
operate, but transform
carrier networks as well.

New submarine
cable systems
target Latin America

By JIM THEODORAS

Lightwave European correspondent

17 Superchannels, flex-grid,
multilayer switching key
developments for next-gen
transport networks
By STEPHEN HARDY

Finally, FTTH
blooms in Europe,
but not everywhere

Big pipes wont be enough

in the future. Youll also need
an efficient way to fill them.
By GEOFF BENNETT AND SERGE MELLE

22 Influencing IEEE 802.3

Ethernet innovation
The standards makers within
IEEE are working hard to
develop the right specifications
for tomorrows needs. But they
need input from end users to do it.
By DAN DOVE

BY KURT RUDERMAN ,

More than a decade after

submarine cable operators
connected Latin Americas
major markets, the region is
witnessing another wave of
submarine cable construction
that could make it the leading
undersea market in 2013.

Ethernet runs out of steam

BY JIM THEODORAS ,

ADVA Optical Networking

It turns out the reason for

the biggest shift in the
laws of Ethernet since its
inception iswait for itIt is hard.

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EDITORIAL

MAR/APR 2013

STEPHEN HARDY

Whats on the menu

expect a few module vendors to have their
425-Gbps metro-centric offerings more
or less ready for sampling. The question
is how much of a demand there will be for
such technology. While coherent versus
direct detect offered a topic
of significant debate at
this time last year, several
Click to view
platform vendors appear to
Stephen's video blog
have selected coherent as
their preferred approach.
(Having trouble? Click here.)
In fact, I can think of only
two systems houses
ADVA Optical Networking
and ECI Telecom that have publicly
catch a glimpse of what may be coming
in the future. Heres what I expect will
committed to offering a 425G option for
be among the more salient topics of
their systems. Whether thats because other
conversation, at least as far as near term
platform companies are waiting to see what
technology and trends are concerned.
kind of economics the module vendors will
The new shape of 100G. Not every
be able to support or because theres not
systems vendor has 100-Gbps capabimuch customer interest in anything that isnt
lities it just seems that way. So well
coherent-enabled should be apparent soon.
see the laggards discussing when they
And speaking of the shape of 100G,
plan to arrive at the party. Meanwhile, I
we should see a few CFP2 modules
f its March, it must be time for OFC/
NFOEC. The optical communications
community will once again descend
on Southern California (this time,
Anaheim) to see whats new now and

FOLLOW STEPHEN ON

reaching production readiness as well.

And then, of course, theres 400G.
Alcatel-Lucent is the first out of the gate
with a 400G deployment and we can
expect other systems developers, particularly Ciena and Huawei, to tell us how
close they are to catching up. (Infinera, of
course, will say that any of their DTN-X
customers are already 500-Gbps-enabled.
But I dont think any of their customers are
fully using that capability.) Of course, 400
Gbps implies superchannels, and superchannels imply flexible-grid ROADMs
and wavelength-selective switches. So
I expect to have several conversations
about these topics in Anaheim. And you
cant discuss ROADMs without touching
on colorless, directionless, and contentionless feature sets, so lets count on those, too.
Tunable SFP+ transceivers. Remember
how innovative we thought tunable XFPs
were a few years ago? Now tunable devices
are taken for granted, to the point that JDSUs
work on tunable SFP+ optical transceivers has

EDITORIAL

continued

almost been forgotten. The company

showed off the device at ECOC last
September and has delivered samples.
Whats the competition doing?
Software-defined networking
(SDN). This is going to be the 100G
of 2013 it will be important, and
people are going to talk about it
until youre tired of listening. SDN
holds significant promise to make
networks more flexible and able to
roll out new services more quickly

than before. It also might enable

the dream of converging the IP and
optical layers or at least getting them
to work together more harmoniously
through an SDN controller.
These will be just the most salient
topics in Anaheim March 1721. Im
sure there will be a few surprises
as well. I hope to see you there
stop me and say hello. Ill be the
frazzled looking guy in glasses.

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INTERVIEW

MAR/APR 2013

with WITH RICHARD MACK

Fiber in Europe bucks economic trends

RICHARD MACK is

fiber optics analyst at

CRU International. He
is the editor of CRUs
Optical Fibre and Fibre
Optic Cable Monitor.
He also is on the team
of analysts that writes
CRUs Telecom Cables
Market Outlook.

Shortly before the FTTH Council Europes

2013 conference in London February
1921, Lightwave European correspondent Kurt Ruderman asked fiber optics
analyst Richard Mack
of CRU International to
evaluate the European
scene in 2012 and offer
his outlook for fiber and
cable in 2013, particularly as it relates
to FTTx in Europe.
Lightwave: What were the key
developments that shaped the European
fiber optics market in 2012?
Mack: Even though several important economies in Europe were
struggling with recession, the regions
optical fiber and cable industry fared
reasonably well in 2012 better than in
2009, when the recession had a greater
effect on telecom capital spending.
For one thing, the large fiber and cable
firms have broad-based businesses.

That is, they have sales organizations

in other regions, and in many cases
there are subsidiary or joint-venture
factories in other regions. Exports
of optical cable by Europes factories were higher in 2012 than in 2011.
One development in 2012 was that we
saw the effects of consolidation. It was
the first full year of the new Prysmian
Group, which combines Prysmian and
Draka. The groups new product and
marketing campaigns highlighted the
combined product family for telecom,
including FTTx applications. Tyco and
ADC, which merged about the same
time as Prysmian and Draka, progressed
with the consolidation of their strengths
in interconnect and passive hardware.
There were important developments in the optical cable industrys
product portfolio, especially innovation aimed at FTTx applications. This
has been a key segment in terms of
market growth, and the manufacturers

have addressed new opportunities with

new cable designs and features aimed
at making the cable easier to install.
Why was 2012 a reasonably good
year in fiber compared with the
regions economic condition?
We would not say that the fiber business
is entirely immune to the poor health of
Europes economy (GDP growth, etc.),
but we would point out that fiber is also
driven by other factors that are far more
positive than GDP trends bandwidth
growth, the EUs drive for broadband
connectivity (the EU Digital Agenda),
efficiencies in data transport for rail,
utility, and other infrastructure, etc.
How did 2012 compare to 2011?
The amount of cabled fiber (multimode
and singlemode) installed in Western
Europe rose 5% from 2011 to 2012. This
was far better than the negative growth
in GDP. The amount installed in Eastern
Europe dropped from 2011 to 2012 by 3%,
due to a downturn in Russias demand. The

INTERVIEW

continued

amount of cabled fiber installed in the

Eastern European markets excluding
Russia showed an increase of 15%.
In addition to the increased quantity
of cable, 2012 saw progress in a
wide range of application environments, requiring a diverse array of
fiber and cable types for FTTH, FTTB,
blown installation, etc. This drove
R&D into new small-diameter cable
types, easily installed cables, etc.
What were the big European
projects in 2012?
Even though Russias demand was
down, the FTTH projects underway
in Moscow and other Russian cities
were still big projects, using a lot of
fiber. Russias demand was still more
than 6 million fiber-km in 2012, even
though Russias demand in 2012 was
down more than 10% from 2011, which
was a very strong year in Russia.
We also saw progress in FTTx
deployments in several important markets. Last year in Turkey,
both Turkcell Superonline and
Turk Telecom were installing FTTH
systems. In the Netherlands, KPN
is progressing city by city with its

FTTH programs at a healthy pace.

Ukrtelecom has FTTH projects in
Ukraine. In the UK, BT Openreach,
which mainly is installing FTTN
and using FTTH for a small percentage of premises passed, is ahead of
schedule with its multiyear program.
What are the top European
fiber markets?
In terms of the amount of cabled
fiber (in fiber-km) installed, the
top 10 markets in order of size are
Russia, Germany, France, the UK,
Turkey, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy,
Switzerland, and Ukraine. These 10
accounted for 74% of all fiber installed in Western and Eastern Europe.
What are the big drivers
for fiber?
Broadband services over FTTx
networks have been the main driver
for fiber optics in Europe for several
years now. It is also the same driver
in much of Asia, North America, parts
of Latin America, and Australasia.
In India, Africa, and other parts of
Latin America, backbone routes are
a more significant driver. In China,
mobile infrastructure has been the

INTERVIEW

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continued

biggest driver (accounting for the

most fiber and the most growth in
recent years), although FTTH is also
a major factor in the China market.
What were the big obstacles to
fiber deployment in Europe in 2012?
Generally, the obstacles for
fiber deployments have to do with
cost, competition, and government policies. The cost problem is
that VDSL can meet the EU Digital
Agenda targets in many locations,
and it gives a conservative carrier
a safe way to offer broadband with
less risk of stranded investment or
having to share fiber infrastructure. When the new vectoring
technology and the somewhat older
pair-bonding technologies are used
with VDSL, the bit rates can meet
the Digital Agenda targets. In some
countries, there is also a competitive
CATV industry offer for broadband,
based on DOCSIS technology.
What is the outlook for 2013?
The main observation about the
European market is that it is a highly
diverse group of about 50 countries.
There are some small markets such

MAR/APR 2013

as Andorra, Iceland, and Jersey that

have been aggressive with FTTH.
There are some large markets such
as Germany and UK that have been
conservative with FTTH and more
willing to pursue FTTN and partial
fiber access-network architectures. Russia has been aggressive with
FTTB, and recently with FTTH, and
this has made it the largest market
in Europe more than twice the
cabled fiber installed per year as
the next largest in recent years.
In 2012, there were some signs for
stronger commitment to spending
on fiber in 2013 among key carriers
in Germany, Italy, and Spain. With
progress in these markets, along with
a resumption of growth in Russia and
steady progress in other markets such
as Turkey, Netherlands, Switzerland,
and France, there is the potential for an increase of 5% to 10% in
the amount of cable installed.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE

The
promise
& perils
of silicon
photonics

By STEPHEN HARDY

Is silicon photonics
all its cracked up to
be? And if you arent
working on it, are you
doomed?

FTER SEVERAL YEARS

of talking about silicon

photonics the use of CMOS
technology to create integrated optical
devices rather than the more exotic
materials commonly in use Intel
Corp. announced in mid-January at the
Open Compute Summit in Santa Clara,
CA, that it had delivered engineering
samples of 100-Gbps silicon photonics
technology for a new rack architecture
it had created with Facebook. The news,
taken alongside the work done by other
vendors and what little is known about
Ciscos silicon photonics-based CPAK
module effort, led Jefferies & Co. analyst
James Kisner to downgrade Finisars
common shares to underperform
and cut his target price by nearly
50%. Finisars shares tumbled 10%
in the immediate aftermath.
The imminent arrival of modules
based on silicon photonics was a
harbinger of big trouble for Finisar
and other traditional transceiver
vendors, Kisner reasoned. While we
suspect it will be a while before we
see optical transceivers from Intel, our
checks suggest a number of players,

MAR/APR 2013

including Cisco, are likely to launch

silicon photonics-based transceivers
for 100G applications in the data
center in 2013 and 2014, he wrote.
But not everyone bought Kisners
thesis. Another financial analysis firm,
Needham & Co., called the threat of
silicon photonics to Finisar overblown.
Intels technology is limited in reach
and Ciscos CPAK modules wont
be distinctly different than CFP2
modules, according to the firm.
So just how disruptive should
we expect silicon photonics to
be both in terms of performance and economics, as well as
creating a watershed moment for
the optical-transceiver market?

Silicon photonics promise

Silicon photonics benefits mirror
those of photonic integrated
circuits (PICs). They include the
ability to create highly integrated,
STEPHEN HARDY is

editorial director and

associate publisher
of Lightwave.
g

FEATURE

GR
GREA
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ATE
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DATA
DAT
ATA
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The promise and perils of silicon photonics

JULY 14-16, 2014

multifunctional components on
wafers. The bonus silicon photonics
promises is the use of CMOS, a much
more economical process than the
indium phosphide common to PICs
and other optical components. The
use of CMOS also creates the opportunity to accommodate optical and
electrical signals in the same device.
Intel and IBM were the first big
name companies to throw their R&D
weight behind silicon photonics and
keep it there. Intel appears closer to

IBMs silicon nanophotonics engine

integrates a variety of components,
including a photodetector (shown
in red on the left side multilayer
device) and modulator (in blue
on the right). Source: IBM

a product than IBM, but IBM reported

last December that it had verified its
silicon nanophotonics technology
in a manufacturing environment. The
resulting device combines modulators, germanium photodetectors, and
multiplexers as well as electronic
circuits (see Figure) and uses 90-nm
CMOS technology. (Unlike Intel, IBM
hasnt created a silicon-based light
emitter.) The devices support data
rates of more than 25 Gbps. IBM shares
Intels focus on data-center and highperformance computing applications.
While these two heavyweights
stole most of the silicon photonics
headlines early on, other companies
more quietly brought silicon-based
optical products to market. For
example, Luxtera created a
transceiver that formed the heart of
its Blazar active optical cable line,
which it later sold to Molex. Almost
immediately after the sale, Luxtera
unveiled its LUX2020A optical engine,
aimed at the same applications as
Intels and IBMs technologies.
Meanwhile, Kotura followed suit
at OFC/NFOEC last year with its

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FEATURE

The promise and perils of silicon photonics

425-Gbps optical engine. The

two-chip device is distinctive for the
incorporation of WDM functionality,
along the lines of Intel and IBM.
A company that has received even
more attention recently is Lightwire
not for producing a revolutionary
product but for being acquired by
Cisco. The systems house will use
Lightwires silicon photonics intellectual property in its CPAK transceiver.
And its this silicon photonics effort
that may influence the optical communications market most significantly.

(Perceived) perils
of silicon photonics
There likely will be more products
taking advantage of silicon
photonics in the reasonably near
term. But just looking at whats
available now, Ciscos CPAK
will have the most impact on the
optical communications industry.
As technologically sexy as the
Intel and IBM efforts appear, theyre
targeted at an application in which
optical communications has made
little headway. Intra-rack, and even

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remains overwhelmingly a copperdominated application. So even if the
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likely to do no more than limit new
opportunities for traditional players
rather than displace them from existing
applications. And before those efforts
achieve success, Intel and IBM have to
create commercial products, have those
products adopted (potentially with a
lack of second sources, unless Luxtera,
Kotura, or some startup falls in line),
then successfully mass produce them.
Ciscos CPAK likely will reach
directly into the wallets of mainstream
transceiver vendors if for no other
reason than Cisco is a major customer
for many of these companies. Any
time a customer decides to build your
product in-house, thats bad news.
Silicon photonics is still in its infancy.
It may indeed change the course of
the optical communications market,
but not before it grows up first.

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FEATURE

MAR/APR 2013 12

By JIM THEODORAS

SDN moves from hype to reality

Software-defined
networking will
not only change
the way datacenter networks
operate, but
transform carrier
networks as well.

ETWORKING HAS witnessed

an endless succession of overhyped technologies over the

years. After all, something must feed
the marketing monster
an endless supply of
headlines, blogs, speaking
ops, conferences, and, yes,
bylines (guilty as charged).
Software-defined
networking (SDN)
might seem like another
example of this phenomenon, given that the hype
surrounding this technology may seem more
suited to a season of
American Idol than to
the calendar of fiber-optic con ferences.
However, its important to note that
there is a lot of serious work being done
by a lot of very smart people to make
JIM THEODORAS is

senior director of technical

marketing at ADVA Optical
p
Networkingg.

the SDN dream a reality and their

efforts are beginning to bear fruit.
So lets look at what SDN is, where
it came from, and where its headed.

Defining SDN
SDN is such an all-encompassing term that
its difficult to define. To some, SDN is a
way of switching networks globally in the
most efficient way possible. To others, its a
way of letting packet-based networks better
handle todays predominantly flow-based

traffic such as over-the-top (OTT) video.

To others still, SDN promises the commoditization of switching/routing hardware,
similar to what has occurred with servers.
Finally, to data-center
The growing
managers who are
complexity in
driving its rapid
data-center
adoption, SDN offers
networks led to
a vendor-agnostic way
interest in SDN
of data-center virtualand OpenFlow. As
ization initially from
standards efforts
within, eventually
proceed, adding
between geographitransport networks
cal sites, and ultimately
to the list of SDN
worldwide to create a
applications
seems a
global data-center that
natural fit.
acts as a single entity.
But when boiled
down to its essential element, SDN is
nothing more than the separation of the
control plane from the data plane. The
data plane focuses on its job of moving
data, and its a slave to a controller that
may or may not be physically separate
and/or centralized, though often SDN

FEATURE

Software-defined networking

implies external centralized control.

The general concept itself is not
new. The use of centralized, separate
control to make more efficient
decisions about the flow of something
is almost as old as humanity itself,
and there are more examples
than space allows in this article to
cover. Early traffic lights merely
timed red-green cycles, each one
independent of others; now, centralized control of synchronized traffic
lights greatly improves throughput
of roads. Early airports made local
decisions on scheduling the landing
and takeoff of planes; now, centralized
air traffic control has dramatically
increased the efficiency of air travel.
SDN in networking is not new
either. We could argue that AT&Ts
Intelligent Call Processing system that
sends messages over the Signaling
System 7 network to route 800 calls
was an example of voice-call SDN.
On the router front, AT&Ts Route
Control Platform efforts presaged
the benefits of centralized control of
routers. In fact, there is little argument
that separation of the control plane

will improve a networks efficiency.

The argument typically is more
about how to best implement it.

OpenFlow
SDN cant be discussed without
mentioning OpenFlow, though there
are other competing protocols
(I2RS, XMPP, etc.). Please note the
word protocol. By itself, OpenFlow
does nothing. Its like the BIOS on
a PC. Its the ambassador between
hardware (the motherboard) and
higher-layer software (the operating
system). Higher-layer software applications (MS Office, Adobe, etc., in
our analogy) must be written on top
of OpenFlow to realize its value.
So why all the fuss? For the first
time, a protocol exists to directly
access the packet forwarding engine
inside a router, which is a routers
primary value-add, a source of
billions of dollars in revenue over the
years, and the last remaining hurdle
in virtualizing the functionality.
The general concept is that, in
addition to MAC and IP tables, an
OpenFlow table is also populated

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FEATURE

Software-defined networking

Application layer

for years. But monitoring flows and intelligently

switching them are two
entirely different things.

Master
controller

OpenFlow

OpenFlow
OpenFlow

Software-defned optical network

SDON using an overlay model with one

OpenFlow agent per subnetwork.

as a router does its job. The router

no longer makes decisions. It just
accepts packets and fills in the table,
then does what an external controller tells it to do, based on simple if/
then/else rules. Using wildcards
acting on packet flows enables a
higher granularity of routing that
has been missing until now.
Again, identifying packet flows
is nothing new NetFlow agents
and tables have been around

SDN inside and outside

the data center

While SDN means different

things to different people,
and its benefits are far reaching, the disparate fields of
study have been gradually coalescing into two
distinct disciplines: inside
and outside the data center.
Inside the data center
refers to virtualizing the
switching and routing function,
commoditizing the hardware, and
having all vendors hardware
managed by a common external
controller so the entire data center
behaves as a single entity. Outside
the data center refers to the physical
transport networks that interconnect
them. While both disciplines contain
all network layers, routers, switches,
fiber optics, etc., their requirements
are very different primarily due to link

distance and the latency it creates.

Its somewhat ironic that a protocol that looks to revolutionize the
management of global networks and
flip inside-out router architectures
had its catalyst inside the data center.
But data centers have grown so large
that their internal networks look a
lot like global networks. In trying
to manage these massive internal
networks and improve their efficiency,
data-center operators turned to SDN
and OpenFlow to control them. And
why not? Their computing, server,
and storage resources are already
virtualized. The only thing within
the walls of data centers that has not
been virtualized is the network itself.
As data centers have outgrown
their walls and more are spring ing
up all over the globe, their operators are now exploring ways of
extending the use of OpenFlow
beyond individual sites to between
the data centers themselves. Doing
so will require more than just a
larger controller because now
the physical transport layer of the
network becomes involved.

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FEATURE

Software-defined networking

Thats a different job than the one

for which OpenFlow was conceived.
Todays networks that link data
centers are interconnected with fiber
optics. The physical transport layer of
the network has become a complex
switching element just like packet
switches with directions, fibers, and
colors as degrees of freedom. Moving
forward, superchannels and variable
baud rate modulation formats will
add two more degrees of freedom.
The beauty of SDN though is that
it doesnt care what a switching
element looks like. Whether a
router, switch, OTN switch, ROADM,
etc., all are abstracted to be a
simple switching element.

Software-defined
optical networking
The European Commissions
OpenFlow in Europe Linking
Infrastructure and Applications
(OFELIA) collaborative project
includes a prototype implementation of SDN concepts to the optical
wavelength-switched domain.
In the prototype, a common

OpenFlow-based umbrella integrated within a reconfigurable optical

add/drop multiplexer (ROADM) provides integrated control of the networks
circuit-based (optical and packetbased) switching layers. Additions
to OpenFlow adapt the protocol
to the strict switching constraints
of optical networking, allowing
OpenFlow to bridge layers. SDN is
effectively transformed into SDON
software-defined optical networking.
SDON based on OpenFlow or
some other protocol could one day
support end-to-end orchestration of
both IT and network resources with a
single stroke. Configuration, management, and scaling of infrastructures
could be drastically simplified, as
holistic control of cloud computing,
storage, and networking resources
is delivered via a single API. That
would potentially enable new opportunities at the network control layer
for large-scale macroscopic network
applications not yet envisioned. True
network virtualization and associated
capabilities such as capacity on
demand, adaptive infrastructure,

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FEATURE

Software-defined networking

and dynamic service automation

could be enabled as bandwidth,
latency, and power consumption
are optimized per application.

Meanwhile, there are two Achilles

heels in extending SDN architecture to the transport layer. One is
the transport time from controller to
controlee. Simply put, the time it
SDN challenges
takes for control messages to travel
The author of OpenFlow said he
from a centralized controller to a
created it to improve
router elsewhere
security for a governmight be longer
LEARN MORE
ment application,
than the length
which is ironic
of the flow being
FOR MORE ON SDN,
since security
controlled. The
READ:
is often touted
result is that
SDN: Mirage or
Article
revolution?
as OpenFlows
the set of flows
chief weakness.
that have been
Indeed, having a
identified for
central controller that commands
re-route have changed charactan entire network would seem akin
eristics before they can be optimized
to aiming at a single bulls eye.
by the central controller, which
Conversely, having distriis working on dated information
buted control has proven even
and always playing catch-up.
more problematic. With a network
To solve this issue, the overall
full of routers making indepennetwork has been divided into layers
dent decisions without visibility
(sound familiar?). At the top sits an
into what is happening elsewhere
orchestration layer where global
or across the network, its relatidecisions are made at a coarse
vely easy to devise attack strategies.
granularity. A master controller acts
A single rogue router can bring
like a conductor of an orchestra
an entire network to its knees.
(see Figure). These decisions are

then passed to a network control

layer, like the sections of an
orchestra, to continue the analogy.
The network controller runs the
part of the network its responsible
for and makes finer granularity
decisions. Finally, each device
on the network gets commands.
Whether the network controller
directly manages each network
device (instruments) in a flattened
model or talks to another SDN
agent (section lead) in an overlay
model remains to be decided.
The second weakness and
potential pitfall of centralized control
of transport networks is that control
plane messages often ride in the
same physical fiber as the data
itself. That creates a chicken-andegg situation where the data cant
flow until the control plane is up, but
the control plane cannot function
until the data flows. The simplest
solution is to maintain physically
separate control and data networks.
Theres at least one large enterprise that owns and runs a massive
data network, yet leases connectivity

MAR/APR 2013 16

from a service provider for control

plane traffic under the stipulation that it cant run in the same
right-of-way as the companys
network. However, with control
plane bandwidth being such a small
percentage of the total transported
bandwidth, the temptation is
great to simply run both control
and data over the same fiber and
rely on quality/class of service
marking to guarantee priority.

Where SDN is headed

As part of its efforts to develop and
standardize SDN and OpenFlow,
the Open Networking Foundation
(ONF) is shaping the protocol for
the optical domain. But such is the
potential of SDN that nearly everyone
wants a piece of the action not
necessarily a bad thing since the
challenge is huge and diverse.
Again, efforts appear to be
splitting down the inside/outsidedata-center universe. Inside efforts
include reference designs for
generic OpenFlow switches and their
continued on p. 26

FEATURE

Big pipes wont

be enough in the
future. Youll also
need an efficient
way to fill them.

MAR/APR 2013 17

By GEOFF BENNETT AND SERGE MELLE

Superchannels, flex-grid, multilayer switching

key developments for next-gen transport networks

O MEET THE dramatic growth

in Internet demand, the optical

industry must find new methods
to increase the total capacity of existing
fiber networks and ensure these
new technologies are economically
efficient, operationally simple, and
scalable. Its only via such combinations
that network providers can continue
scaling network bandwidth while
limiting infrastructure investments.
Coherent transmission technology,
which combines advanced amplitude/
phase modulation with sophisticated digital
signal processing, enables 100-Gbps
ultra-long transmission with about 10X
the fiber capacity compared to 10-Gbps
transmissions using intensity modulation with direct detection. But to meet the

GEOFF BENNETT is director of solutions and

technology and SERGE MELLE is vice president,

technical marketing at Infinera Corp

p.

Pulse-shaped
100 Gbps
PM-16QAM

The operational deployment

of 500-Gbps superchannels in
service-provider networks and
demonstrations of future superchannels having 1 Tbps or more
of capacity will drive further
development of WDM technologies. Well review three of these
development areas: the expansion
25 GHz
25 GHz
50 GHz
of flexible coherent modulation
capabilities, a new flexible WDM
FIGURE 1. Spectral efficiency of PM-QPSK versus
grid (flex-grid) that maximizes
PM-16QAM and the impact of pulse shaping.
WDM capacity and operational
dramatic growth in bandwidth demand,
ease-of-use, and a tiered multilayered
service providers need to be able to turn
photonic and digital switching architecture.
up more than 100 Gbps at a time. The
industry response has been the introducFlexibility is key
tion of coherent superchannels operating
A key innovation enabled by coherent
at 500 Gbps, in which multiple coherent
modulation is the ability simply using
carriers are digitally combined to create
software to tune the type of modulation
an aggregate channel of a higher data rate
to the application in question. Early flexon a single high-density line card that can
coherent modulations supported both
be deployed in one operational cycle.
QPSK modulation for long-haul terrestrial
100 Gbps
PM-QPSK

100 Gbps
PM-16QAM

FEATURE

Next-gen transport networks

transport and BPSK for ultra-long-haul

or submarine applications. Future
flex-coherent modulation capabilities
will further broaden the spectrum of
software-tunable modulation formats,
enabling, for example, 16QAM
modulation that will provide 2X the
capacity per carrier (at the expense
of optical reach and thus targeted for
use in metro applications). Further
expansion of flex-coherent modulation will enable service providers
to deploy a single type of WDM
line card for a range of applications and use software to enable
operationally simple tuning to the
reach and application required.
The first generation of flexible
modulation 500-Gbps superchannels used a WDM grid with
fixed channel spacing to ensure
backward compatibility with existing
line systems. But as more sophisticated flex-coherent modulation
tech nologies become available, more
flexible means will be required to
manage the WDM optical spectrum. So the old fixed-grid world
may no longer be the most efficient

way to build an optical network.

In Figure 1, each of the spectra
shown is a 100-Gbps single-carrier
transmission. On the left, we see a
conventional PM-QPSK transmission
will fit into a channel spacing of about
45 GHz and is nicely compatible with
existing 50-GHz fixed-grid systems
and associated reconfigurable optical
add/drop multiplexers (ROADMs). In
the center is a 100-Gbps PM-16QAM
wavelength, which only consumes
about half the spectrum of a
100-Gbps PM-QPSK wavelength and
thus would fit well into a 25-GHz
channel spacing. But on the right
is a pulse-shaped PM-16QAM
wavelength. Pulse shaping applies
Nyquist filtering at both the transmitter and receiver, with the goal of
eliminating the intersymbol interference between channels. Since
the shaped pulse spectrum is now
much narrower than the 22 GHz of a
normal PM-16QAM signal, instead of
basing the grid spacing on individual
wavelengths, it would be more practical to look at the overall superchannel
spectral width and build a flexibly

MAR/APR 2013 18

sized channel to match. The shaded

the spectrum is a conventional
areas indicate the wasted spect100-Gbps PM-QPSK signal, with no
rum for the shaped pulse spectrum.
pulse shaping and with a spacing
To alleviate this waste and enable
of about 45 GHz. This fits into a
manufacturers a way to build superflexible channel built from four
channel-friendly
devices, the ITU-T
100 Gbps, PM-QPSK
500 Gbps, PM-QPSK
500 Gbps, PM-16QAM
4 12.5 GHz = 50 GHz
30 12.5 GHz = 375 GHz 15 12.5 GHz = 187.5 GHz
has defined a flexible
grid in the latest
WDM wavelength
grid specification,
G.694.1. The new
flex-grid defines
10-carrier
10-carrier
WDM channels
superchannel
superchannel
having a granularity of 12.5 GHz,
FIGURE 2. Flexible channels built with 12.5-GHz granularity.
combined with the
ability to define an
aggregate superchannel spectral
12.5-GHz units. In the center is a
width of N 12.5 GHz, to accompulse-shaped PM-QPSK superchanmodate any combination of optical
nel of 500-Gbps capacity and with a
carriers, modulations, and data rate.
spectral width of about 375 GHz. This
In addition, the N 12.5-GHz spectral
would be supported using a flexible
width of a flex-grid superchannel can
channel built from 30 12.5-GHz
be tuned, enabling rapid changes
units. On the right is a pulse-shaped,
when the operating specifications
PM-16QAM superchannel also of
of the superchannel are varied.
500-Gbps capacity. As expected,
Figure 2 shows how this flexthis occupies a flexible channel
grid would work. On the left of
made up of only 15 12.5-GHz units.

FEATURE

Next-gen transport networks

The bottom line is that the huge

boost in fiber capacity enabled by
coherent technology combined with
the application of superchannels for
data rates beyond 100 Gbps enables
operational scaling by allowing
service providers to turn up optical
capacity in larger increments with
the same effort. The move to more
advanced modulation formats such
as 16QAM can further double fiber
capacity for shorter reach metro
applications while use of a flexible
WDM grid will deliver another 25%
of optical capacity by allowing the
subcarriers in WDM superchannels to
be squeezed more closely together.

A switch in time
The question then becomes how to
best manage these superchannels
in typical service-provider networks.
Traditionally, WDM networks operated with single-carrier wavelength
channels and used ROADMs to do
photonic-only switching of these
wavelengths. Since the majority of
end-user client services remain
10 Gbps or less, muxponders

are used to aggregate these

services in a point-to-point fashion
onto 100-Gbps wavelengths.
However, many studies have
shown that photonic-only switching
can be inefficient, because ROADMs
used with 100G muxponders do
not provide any ability to groom or
switch subwavelength traffic within
or between wavelengths. That can
lead to low utilization of deployed
bandwidth and therefore overdeployment of 100G wavelengths,
also termed the muxponder tax.1 In
addition, as network traffic volumes
increase and more and more
wavelengths are used, it becomes
increasingly difficult to find unused
end-to-end wavelengths across the
network. That creates what is called
wavelength blocking and requires
the use of incremental and otherwise
unnecessary regens for wavelength
conversion to eliminate the problem.2
To alleviate this problem, networks
have been built with converged
WDM and switching, where digital
subwavelength grooming is integrated with WDM optics to enable highly

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Next-gen transport networks

efficient packing of WDM waves.

Sometimes called digital ROADMs
or integrated WDM/OTN, this
approach minimizes the deployment
of costly WDM optics, eliminates
all wavelength blocking, and can
reduce network capital expenditures
(capex) by approximately 30%.3
As wavelength channels evolve
from single-carrier 100G to multicarrier 500G superchannels, however,
digital grooming of every superchannel may not be necessary or desired.
Once digital grooming has fully filled
a 500-Gbps long-haul superchannel,

its most cost-effective for that channel

to optically express through intermediate add/drop nodes and terminate
only at its end destination. In this
context, ROADMs enable superchannels to be easily switched and
reconfigured to maximize operational flexibility, while the integrated
WDM/switching platforms maximize
bandwidth and capex efficiency.
Thus, to maximize efficiency,
next generation optical transport
networks should deploy network
nodes support ing multilayer
switching, which combines the
benefits of both
Service level grooming
photonic ROADM
Digital bandwidth

  
Digital
switching and
management
switching "    

integrated
 

digital OTN
switching, as
shown in Figure
     

Photonic
3. Network
Flex-grid ROADM
switching 

    



studies have
! 

   
   
 

shown that
such multiFIGURE 3. Integrated multilayer photonic and digital
layer switching
switching maximizes capex efficiency while maximizing
can reduce the
reconfigurability and operational simplicity.
total number

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FEATURE

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FEATURE

Next-gen transport networks

of WDM ports by 1322% compared to all-optical or all-digital

switching alone.4 To enable the
capacity scaling made possible
by 500-Gbps superchannels and
flexible WDM grids, next-gen
ROADMs will therefore need to
support flex-grid technologies
to allow reconfigurable tuning of
superchannel spectrum allocation and location on the WDM grid.
Going forward, next generation optical transport networks
will need to make the most use of
the flexibility and scaling enabled
using advanced coherent modulation technologies. More advanced
flexible coherent modulation will
support a wide range of modulations tailored to specific applications,
capacities, and reaches. Flexible
WDM grids will enable more
efficient and flexible use of optical
spectrum to maximize capacity.
And a tiered multilayer photonic
and digital switching architecture
will provide the most cost-effective
and efficient network architecture
for ultra-high-bandwidth scaling.

References
1. M. Bertolini, et al., Benefits of OTN
Switching Introduction in 100Gbit/s
Optical Transport Networks, OFC/
NFOEC Conference, Session NM2F,
Los Angeles, March 48, 2012.
2. S. Melle and V. Vusirikala,
Network Planning and
Architecture Analysis of
Wavelength Blocking in Optical and
Digital ROADM Networks, OFC/
NFOEC Conference, Session NTuC,
Anaheim, March 2529, 2007.
3. Deore, et al., Total Cost of
Ownership of WDM and Switching
Architectures for Next-Generation
100Gbit/s Networks, IEEE
Communications Magazine, vol. 50,
no.11, pp. 179187, November 2012.
4. S. Roy, et al., Evaluating
Efficiency of Multi-Layer Switching
in Future Optical Transport
Networks, March 1721, 2013
proceedings of OFC/NFOEC
Conference in Anaheim.

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FEATURE

MAR/APR 2013 22

By DAN DOVE

Influencing IEEE 802.3 Ethernet innovation

The standards
makers within
IEEE are working
hard to develop the
right specifications
for tomorrows
needs. But they
need input from
end users to do it.

ITH 1-GBPS server

interconnections as the
mainstay for years, data centers
are moving to 10 Gbps and appear poised
to make relatively rapid leaps to 40- and
100-Gbps Ethernet for switch interconnects
and 400-Gbps Ethernet between data
centers. Thats how quickly data-center
bandwidth demands are spiraling upward.
Innovation of the IEEE 802.3 family
of Ethernet standards is accelerating too, and now is the time for end
users to influence the ongoing advancement of the IEEE 802.3 standard. It is
the marketplace itself that has consistently driven the refinement and expansion
of IEEE 802.3. There are multiple ways
that participants in the global Ethernet
ecosystem can get involved today to help
shape the direction of the technology.

DAN DOVE is

IEEE P802.3bm Task Force

chair and a member of the Ethernet Alliance.
He also is a senior director of technology
for Applied
pp
Micro Circuits Corp
p.

Traffc (relative to 2010 value)

100

Financial sector
Science
ESnet 2004 to 2011 CAGR = 95%
CAGR = 70%

Peering
CAGR = 61%

10
Euro-IX
historical data
1

0.1

Core
CAGR = 58%
Cable
CAGR = 50%
IP traffc
CAGR = 32%

NYSE
historical data

Server I/O
CAGR = 36%

0.01
2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020

FIGURE 1. Relative

expected traffic increase

normalized to 2010. Source: Figure 40 in the
2012 IEEE 802.3 Ethernet Bandwidth Assessment
report, http://www.ieee802.org/3/ad_hoc/bwa/

Market-driven innovation
The IEEE 802.3 Standard for Ethernet
defines wired connectivity for Ethernet
local-area, access, and metropolitan-area
networks globally. Entirely new business
models, industries, and ways of life have
grown out of Ethernet technology, which
is celebrating its 40th anniversary this
year. Innovation has been continuous and

multidimensional throughout the standards

history, as the industry has sought to adopt
additional media types, address bandwidth
needs, and develop new protocols. Thats
the underlying story of the success of
IEEE 802.3. In fact, the standards development has always been and continues to
be market-driven and open to everyone.
Consider, for example, the consensusbuilding activities that eventually yielded
the IEEE 802.3ba-2010 amendment. By
the end of the first decade of the 2000s,
Ethernet had successfully evolved from the
LAN technology of choice for enterprises
to a widely adopted carrier-grade option. It
was evident, however, that the bandwidth
needs associated with data centers, Internet
exchanges, high-performance computing (HPC), and video-on-demand delivery
had outpaced existing capabilities. So the
IEEE P802.3ba project was launched in
2006, and the Ethernet ecosystem stakeholders included users and producers
of systems and components for servers,
network storage, networking systems,

FEATURE

IEEE 802.3 Ethernet innovation

HPC, telecommunications carriers,

and multiple systems operators
moved swiftly to address the market
need with a broader set of specifications than previously included in
the existing IEEE 802.3 standard.
A closer look into the market
revealed that the bandwidth requirements of computing and core
networking applications were growing
at distinctly different rates. On one
hand, servers, HPC clusters, blade
servers, storage area networks, and

network-attached storage typically

making use of 1-Gbps and 10-Gbps
Ethernet connections showed a
significant market potential for migration to a 40-Gbps Ethernet interface.
On the other hand, core networking
applications switching, routing, and
aggregation in data centers, Internet
exchanges, HPC environments, and
service-provider peering points
demanded a larger leap forward to
100 Gbps. This schism sparked the
Great Rate Debate, in which participants challenged each
100GBASE-nR4
other to define optimal rate
For massive data centers, these
offerings that would deliver
links are anticipated to be
between 30 and 500 m
the best balance of perforLots of links
mance and cost for a growing
range of applications.
Very
cost-sensitive
So with mass-market
access to high-bandwidth
applications accelerating
and more powerful server
architectures constrained by
bandwidth bottlenecks for
FIGURE 2. Emerging requirements are
data centers, network providdriving the development of a new generation
ers, and end users alike, a
of 100 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces. Source:
new Ethernet generation was
Ethernet Alliance, ECOC 2012
spawned. IEEE 802.3ba was

FEATURE

IEEE 802.3 Ethernet innovation

rolled out in 2010 to extend the IEEE

802.3 protocol to operating speeds
of 40 Gbps and 100 Gbps. It was the
first standard ever to simultaneously
define two new Ethernet speeds.
Remarkably, the new standard
helped simplify complex link aggregation schemes that were being commonly
used in network architectures, while
maintaining maximum compatibility
with the installed base of interfaces. The
IEEE 802.3ba amendment successfully
paved the way for a new generation of high-rate server connectivity
and core switching in a single spec.

Reassessing market needs

In part because of the long hard
work that went into determining
the speeds to be targeted in the
IEEE 802.3ba amendment, the
IEEE 802.3 Industry Connections
Ethernet Bandwidth Assessment
ad hoc committee was formed in
early 2011 to create a strategic view
of the bandwidth trends affecting
Ethernet wireline applications. The
idea was to jumpstart future potential standards-development activities.

The ad hoc group gathered input

from a range of application spaces
(servers, data-center networks, HPC,
financial markets, carrier and cable
operators, Internet exchanges, the
scientific community, etc.) and from
users in various markets around
the world. The result was the 2012
IEEE 802.3 Ethernet Bandwidth
Assessment report, which delivered
an important and broad examination of the market needs. (The report
is free to download from http://www.
ieee802.org/3/ad_hoc/bwa/.)
The report shows that bandwidth
growth was being widely driven
across application spaces and markets
by parallel surges in users, access
methodologies, access rates, and
services (see Figure 1). Bandwidth
requirements of network aggregation
nodes were expanding more quickly
than for end-station applications.
The report forecasts that networks
will need to support an average
58% compound annual growth rate
(CAGR), with the most aggressive
CAGRs recorded in the financial
sector and data-intensive science.

More precisely, global networks

would need to support 1 Tbps
by 2015 and 10 Tbps by 2020.
No assumptions were made
in the 2012 IEEE 802.3 Ethernet
Bandwidth Assessment with regard
to future interface speed needs. The
decision about whether the exploding bandwidth requirements
would be best serviced by higher
interface speeds or parallel configurations using lower speeds
would be left to future potential
standards-development activities.

Evolving IEEE 802.3 again

Meanwhile, refinement of IEEE
802.3 continued as well. Today, IEEE
P802.3bm is amending IEEE 802.3
specifications for lower-cost, lowerpower, and higher-density 100-Gbps
physical layer (PHY) and management
parameters as well as 40-Gbps operation over extended (40-km) reach.
The task force working on the new
amendment is defining the following:
40G-BASE-ER4 (40-km) interface, which would allow low-cost
40-Gbps adoption in metropolitan

MAR/APR 2013 24

applications, simplifying networks

and entailing a low risk of change.
100G-BASE-SR4 and 100G-BASE-nR4
425-Gbps optical interfaces for
multimode and singlemode fiber,
respectively, which would reduce
the cost and power of transceivers
as well as the number of fibers per
link in data-center applications.
425G electrical interface, which
would eliminate the need for 10:4
multiplexing/demultiplexing in
optical modules by creating four
lanes at 25-Gbps data rate and
fundamentally reducing width, cost,
and power as well as increasing
the density of 100-Gbps optics.
Energy Efficient Ethernet, a
technology that lowers power
consumption for systems based
on use, which is being extended
to 40- and 100-Gbps data rates.
Again, IEEE P802.3bm is a marketdriven activity. Today, even more
throughput is needed inside the data
center with the ongoing proliferation of smartphones and applications
like video-on-demand, convergence,
and cloud computing, which take

FEATURE

IEEE 802.3 Ethernet innovation

advantage of dense cloud servers.

Higher performance and capacity are
required closer to the servers than
ever before, and those requirements
will demand higher-density, lowercost, and lower-power 100-Gbps
Ethernet technology (see Figure 2).
Working-group balloting on IEEE
P802.3bm is scheduled to begin late
this year. Technical revisions will
continue next year, and the amendment is scheduled for completion
in 2015. In the meantime, technical proposals for IEEE P802.3bm
continue to be accepted. Indeed, a
number of different alternatives are
under consideration. For example,
there are a variety of areas for
consideration in development of
the 100-Gbps approach for multimode fiber, such as equalization to
compensate for bandwidth limitations of optics and traces, forward
error correction, and its potential
for increasing latency to achieve
improvements in signal-to-noise ratio.
The task force has taken on the goal
of supporting at least a 100-m reach
on multimode fiber. In addition, a

20-m reach objective may be included

in the specification, or it may lead
to a separate PHY. If a single 100-m
specification can be created that is so
cost-effective there is no need for a
20-m option, then that would be the
path the task force pursues. If 20 m
would be substantially less expensive, then an additional shorter-reach
alternative would be developed.
As many engineers know,
standards development is a process
of constantly trading market requirements against parameters such as
power, cost, and performance. Its
a multi-factored equation to be
considered if the most effective
possible standard is to be crafted.
And thats why broad participation
from across the Ethernet ecosystem
is so important in the ongoing refinement of IEEE 802.3 standards.
What engineers think is the best
technical approach may not align
precisely with what end users need,
so its critical that perspectives from
across the landscape are taken into
account to ensure that broad market
demands are effectively addressed.

Jan. 28 30, 2014

exp
xpos
osit
itio
ion
n
confer
conf
eren
ence & e

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Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center . San Antonio, Texas

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FEATURE

IEEE 802.3 Ethernet innovation

Getting involved
Standards are living documents.
Expertise earned from the
challenges and difficulties encountered in implementing standards
in the field is invaluable in
improving those standards.
Anyone can participate and
direct the movement of an IEEE
802.3 project and guide development of Ethernet technology
within the industry. End users can
engage in many different ways,
given their particular interests
and environments, including:
Through the Ethernet Alliance,
there are opportunities to work
within the 40-Gbps and 100-Gbps
subcommittees, which are focused
on driving consensus within
industry toward approaches
potentially adopted within IEEE.
A systems architect who represents an end users business,
for example, could provide the
kind of input thats especially
needed in these activities.
Participate as an individual within
IEEE by becoming involved in the

development of baseline proposals. In this way, end users can

directly influence the development
of the IEEE 802.3 standards family.
Furthermore, the application space
is constantly changing. Consensus
is being forged into the next areas
of Ethernet innovation for wireline
applications. There will undoubtedly
be opportunities to guide future
standards-development activities
as the Ethernet ecosystem embarks
on its next frontier of growth.
The IEEE 802.3 standard is
the work of thousands of people
over a period of 40 years. The
development process is open
to anyone, and all stakeholders
directly participate in influencing
the standards ongoing innovation. Now is the time to get involved
to ensure your voice is heard.
Note: IEEE 802.3, IEEE P802.3bm,
and IEEE 802.3ba are trademarks
of the IEEE.
SHARE THIS ARTICLE

SDN cont. from page 16

controllers as well as device drivers
for the hardware and software for
the various layers in the controller.
Outside efforts include transport
vendors updating their products with
OpenFlow control sockets in the near
term, with dedicated products to
follow. Transport extensions are being
worked on for the OpenFlow table,
and alternatives to OpenFlow are
starting to come out of the woodwork.
At the orchestration layer,
standards bodies are working
toward a common definition of
a connectivity table so that all
network devices at all layers can
communicate basic information
to a master-master controller.
All these activities are
leading to demonstrations
galore, including government,
research, education, industry,
and privately funded projects.
You name it, and its happening
in SDN.
SHARE THIS ARTICLE

MAR/APR 2013 26

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OPTICAL TECHNOLOGIES,
COMMUNICATIONS

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2012

VOLUME 29 NO. 6

BLOG:

Guess that customer!

EDITORIAL /// Over

By STEPHEN HARDY

Click here for your access to M/A-COM Techs Optoelectronics Portfolio.

MORE INFO online

ANALYSIS WORLDWIDE

WWW.LIGHTWAVEONLINE.COM

the shoulder

M/ACom

Theres

APPLICATIONS, AND INDUSTRY

5 Steady progress earns

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Canadas shift to FTTH.

14 Challenges and key

technologies for coherent
metro 100G transceivers

Optelian

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19 Network latency how

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Photonic integration:
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