TSC, as usual, favors controversy over accuracy.
First off even if SCMR has failed to get the Bells to certify their equipment or accept SCMR's standard (because of the three-year time necessary for certification) there is no question that SCMR's equipment has inter-operability with existing SONET technology. Their switches work with everything out there. Not only that, they are software/firmware upgrade-able as the network changes. Surely Bell South, Vondaphone and Quest wouldn't be using their equipment if there was a chance they'd be stuck in a technological dead end.
You only have to look at the explosion of DWDM, Point-to-Point, Mesh and Gigabit Ethernet solutions being built to realize that SONET and TDM networks days are numbered for new network builds. Although, since the Bells have spent so much money getting them through Y2K, you can't see them being scrapped either so it is obvious that any solutions will be inter-operable with ring topologies.
With the move from network traffic being mostly voice to mostly data there is a real need for less complex more efficient network builds. The lead-time necessary for planning and creating a ring topology are too long for todays needs and changes after the original build are difficult. The advantages of a mesh topology are that you have a pay-as-you-grow capability. The point to point requires little up front planning and random growth is possible, you can add channels and equipment as you add customers and you can be making money with your network right from the start. You can have levels of service for different types of customers.
You also have the ability to gang up customers, sell bandwidth for short time frames, add bandwidth in the situation where demand expands beyond your customers original expectations and reroute traffic from a central control. When you start throwing in optical cross connects (OXC), DWDM and add/drop multiplexers (ADM) and then make them all software configurable the value of your network expands exponentially.
As Deshpande pointed out in his interview, the Bells will be forced to change before SCMR is forced to go for their certification. The reason is the efficiencies I mentioned above, no one will be able to ignore those advantages. In fact, going for that certification with the three year lag and ignoring the direction where networks are going will undoubtedly put any optics company way behind its competitors. Need I mention LU here? |
