60-second interview with .... Sterling Perrin

Heavy Reading has published a report Photonic Integration, Super Channels & the March to Terabit Networks. In this 60-second interview, Sterling Perrin, senior analyst at the market research company, talks about the report's findings and the technology's importance for telecom and datacom.

"PICs will be an important part of an ensemble cast, but will not have the starring role. Some may dismiss PICs for this reason, but that would be a mistake – we still need them."

Sterling Perrin, Heavy Reading

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Has the restructuring of the optical industry already started?

The view that consolidation in the optical networking industry is needed is not new. For a decade, ever since the end of the optical boom in 2001, consolidation has been called for and has been expected. And while the many optical startups funded then have long exited or been acquired, the optical industry continues to support numerous optical networking and component generalist and specialists. 

Given the state of the telecom market, is a more fundamental industry restructuring finally on its way? 

"The business model of the communication sector needs to change, and change in a relatively short order"

Larry Schwerin, CEO of Capella Intelligent Subsystems

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The OTN transport and switching market

Source: Infonetics Research

The OTN transport and switching market is forecast to grow at a 17% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2011 to 2016, outpacing the 5.5% CAGR of the optical equipment market (WDM, SONET/SDH). So claims a recent study on the OTN equipment marketplace by Infonetics Research.

A Q&A with report author, Andrew Schmitt, principal analyst for optical at Infonetics.

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Industry underestimating 25 Gigabit parallel optics challenge

Ten Gigabit-based parallel optics is set to dominate the marketplace for several years to come. So claims datacom module specialist, Avago Technologies. 

"One customer told us it has to keep the interface speed below 20Gbps due to the cost of the SerDes"

Sharon Hall, Avago 

"People are underestimating what is going to be involved in doing 25 Gigabit [channels]," says Sharon Hall, product line manager for embedded optics at Avago Technologies. "Ten Gigabit is going to last quite a bit longer because of the price point it can provide."

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A Terabit network processor by 2015?

Given that 100 Gigabit merchant silicon network processors will appear this year only, it sounds premature to discuss Terabit devices. But Alcatel-Lucent's latest core router family uses the 400 Gigabit FP3 packet-processing chipset, and one Terabit is the next obvious development.

Source: Gazettabyte

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OpenFlow extends its control to the optical layer

OpenFlow may be causing an industry stir as system vendors such as ADVA Optical Networking extend the protocol's reach to the optical layer, but analysts warn that it will take years before the technology benefits operators' revenues.

"We see OpenFlow as an additional solution to tackle the problem of network control"

Jörg-Peter Elbers, ADVA Optical Networking

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OTN processors from the core to the network edge

The latest silicon design announcements from PMC and AppliedMicro reflect the ongoing network evolution of the Optical Transport Network (OTN) protocol.

"There is a clear march from carriers, led in particular by China, to adopt OTN in the metro"

Scott Wakelin, PMC

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