Hi Dan,
re: ".. on the new 10Gb 803.2ae std released at the Hilton Head meeting, was SONET framing in the spec? If not, what framing is proposed?"
It's appropriate that you should ask that question. For the most part, framing for Ethernet in the First Mile will bifurcate along the lines of commercial (ANSI/ITU SONET) and residential (IEEE). I've not reviewed the minutes from the last meeting yet, but that's how it's been looking.
Commercial GbE and 10GbE is already gravitating very heavily towards SONET constructs in a growing number of instances. EFM for residential, however, will operate at lower line rates and will very likely be a modified form of 802.3, making allowances for greater distances. The latter having a direct bearing on some of the original algorithms. In cases where the mode is 'shared' Ethernet, these algorithms may be modified. In the case of switched Ethernet, those algorithms might be eliminated entirely.
I don't see SONET in residential Ethernet (such as OC-12 through OC192) except, perhaps, in the backbone infrastructure between the host digital terminal (CO or Head End) and the first field nodes. That's the outside plant part. Looking inside the carrier networks, however, in the edge of those residential networks, between the access platforms themselves and the uplinks to the core, we'll probably see 802.3xx being aggregated at the access level and being converted on the back ends of those aggregation devices to OC-192 towards the core.
But in business-related platforms, such as those now being supported by dark fiber carriers, it is already SONET, or a combination of both, with the dominant carriers electing to go with SONET formats, and some of the newer providers (who can't afford, or don't want to get involved with, the more expensive SONET at this time) opting to go with native 802.3.
But unless the startups go with OC192, too, they may have problems down the road exchanging traffic with the other carriers in the long haul, unless they colocate at an ISP exchange point, or exchange traffic only with ISPs in some other fashion. This is because most of the established carriers will be using add-drop multiplexers and optical switches that speak only SONET for now.
FAC |
