SEPTEMBER' 99
Optical Fiber Revolution Will Sweep Away
Present Telecom Systems
Soon the demand for unlimited bandwidth, will be too overwhelming to be met
by any electronic (or electron driven) channels. Photons, or light waves running
in optical fiber with their infinite capacity will provide the only answer.
Future trends indicate that the dumb dark fiber- an optical fiber cable network that is
currently in place but is not being used- is going to be the choice of telcos in future if
they want to emerge as a competitive force in telecommunications.
According to George Gilder, contributing editor of the Forbes ASAP magazine, "in all
eras, companies tend to prevail by maximizing the use of the cheapest resource. In the
age of the fibersphere they will use the huge intrinsic bandwidth of fiber, all 25,000 Giga
Hertz or more, to simplify everything else. This means replacing nearly all the hundreds
of billion dollars worth of switches, bridges, routers, converters, compressors error
correctors and other devices, together with the trillions of lines of software code, that
pervade the intelligent switching fabric of both telephone and computer networks."
Power of Photons
"The intrinsic capacity of a fiber thread, as thin as a human hair, is at least one
thousand times the capacity of what we call the 'air'. One fiber thread could carry 25
times more bits than last year's average traffic load of all the world's communications
network put together", says Gilder.
The greatest impact of this all-optical technology will likely come in consumer markets.
A move towards massively parallel communications analogous to the move to parallel
computers, all- optical networks promise nearly boundless bandwidth in fiber.
The new paradigm will reduce the cost of transport by a factor of 10. Photons are
immune to lightning strikes, electromagnetic pulses, or electrical power surges that
destroy electronic equipment. Virtually noiseless and mass less pulses of radiation,
they move as fast and silently as light. Within 10 years, the optical network will be
thousands of times more cost-effective than electronic networks and thus the photons
will rule the waves of communications.
infozech.com |
