Re: Opticon News - Sprint Creates a Network Roadmap
Hi all,
Here's some news from the Opticon 2000 affair:
eetimes.com
[Aside: This announcement seems to be very much in keeping with the commentary of Dan Smith, Sycamore Networks, who was recently interviewed by Light Reading. It would seem that network intelligence is the buzz word for the last part of this year. Speed, as in OC-768 systems, is something that will develop more slowly....]
Protocol support beats speed
By Loring Wirbel
(08/01/00, 3:23 p.m. EST)
BURLINGAME, Calif. — Long-haul carriers are more interested in offering combined support for new and legacy protocols than in moving to the core network physical-layer speed of 40 Gbits/second, Sprint Corp.'s director of network planning and design said in an opening session of the Opticon 2000 conference this week.
Ben Vos of Sprint (Kansas City, Mo.) said it is more important to support direct optical interfaces over core routers and asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switches than to update fiber in the network to OC-768 (40-Gbit/s) speeds. Sprint is still in the early phases of rolling out OC-192 (10-Gbit/s) equipment, Vos said, and it may be two to three years before OC-768 enters widespread trials.
Vos said the most important thing he wants from transport equipment vendors is a "complete, holistic solution for end-to-end services," which in practice means that the vendors take the initiative in making sure their equipment interoperates across various protocols and physical interfaces. For example, Sonet rings based on time division multiplexed (TDM) services will exist in the network for a long time to come, Vos said, and any vendor who talks about the death of Sonet must show how its restoration and protection features will be replaced.
In an interview following his speech, Vos said that carriers will not base networks on one vendor's products any longer, and consequently vendors must work on proving interoperability before offering products. The transition from Sonet to packet-over-wavelength networks, or from TDM voice to packetized voice, can be accelerated when vendors provide more help for carriers in managing transitional networks, he said.
Sprint was in the midst of unveiling its complex new Integrated On-demand Network (ION) when MCI/WorldCom Inc. made a bid to acquire the company in early 2000. MCI abandoned the bid a month ago when both the U.S. Justice Department and the European Union said they would oppose the merger. Vos said that MCI and Sprint engineers were prohibited by law from discussing even tentative collaborative efforts in broadband services.
The company has been slow in deploying ION, however, due to the difficulty in developing last-mile solutions appropriate for both residential and business customers. Vos said last-mile access remains a problem despite Sprint's heavy presence in wireless multichannel multipoint distribution service licenses, and in its heavy deployment of digital subscriber line equipment in co-located central office racks.
While ION was supposed to move voice traffic off the TDM circuit-switched infrastructure and into Internet protocol (IP) transmission, Vos said that day is a long way off. Since Sprint made a heavy commitment to ATM, it is not clear whether packetized voice should move first to ATM, or whether Sprint should encourage a near-term switch to voice-over-IP. What ION does provide, however, is a conversion path for abandoning circuit switches in the network, Vos said.
In its early phases, ION calls for phasing out the Class 5 circuit switches in local environments with soft switches that utilize both ATM and IP technology, Vos said. Only in later stages will Sprint replace the backbone Class 4 circuit switches with new IP-centric platforms.
In theory, there are many Internet service providers (ISPs) who are creating "peering centers" with brokered service-level agreements, allowing them to function much like legitimate carriers. Vos said that he sees a difference in quality between true fault-tolerant networks built by circuit-centric carriers and the peering hotels built by national networks of ISPs.
"There is still a big difference in the network reliability of true carrier-class service providers," Vos said. "At the same time, it's dangerous not to worry about whoever may happen to be coming up in your rear-view mirror." |
