That copper wire circuit was then dedicated for your use as would one frequency in the system envisioned by Avanex (I think) but switching still has to happen, though it will only need happen once when the circuit is opened.
Yes, switching does happen but the key is the information in the light does not need to be opened (ie, converted to electrical and then reconverted to optical again). Instead the frequency of the light itself is all that needs to be known to direct the light.
Which means the light stays light (no electrical transformation) because the frequency of light can be determined directly from the character of the light that is being received. The device reading the light will either open or close its circuigts based upon the frequency of the light, and the light will be directed accordingly.
Thus, where today a packet has to be opened (converted to electrical) and then analyzed to get the 0s and 1s in order to tell the switch or router where the light needs to go and then reconverted back to light (very expensive, costly, time consuming, and limiting), the all optical network will carry this information as part of its frequency and tell the switching mechanism where it needs to go without have to be opened, transformed, etc. The light stays light and the switch to the proper location is opened in a point to point matter. Like what happens when the operator connected two lines; but instead of first having to open the message, convert it to electricity to find the phone number, the light itself, via its frequency, will communicate its phone number in real time to the circuit switch device, and the switch will act accordingly.
So that is the fundamental and very important difference. At least from my understanding. The key being having the capacity to put enough beams of light on a fiber to enable this process to work.
I'm still working on understanding it, but that is essentially what this Gilder "Lambdasphere" paradigm is about. Gilder has moved from the "Telecosm" off to the lambdasphere; in Gilder's mind AVNX is the essential enabling key; the one must have technology for this "perfect" network to work. I use the word "perfect" in the sense that if you were to build a network completely from scratch, Gilder states that building it in this AVNX way is the way you would build it. It is the fastest, the cheapest, the most accurate, the simplest, and indeed capable of the highest capacity of bandwidth.
This is not all theoretical. Actual working all-optical models have been built. None have been commercially deployed as of yet. What is holding it back is tunable lasers and the need to put more channels on each fiber.
So, this is the long-range vision of where networks should go (and according to Gilder, pretty much have to go if bandwidth demand continues its exponential growth).
I have not bought AVNX based on this obviously pre-chasm vision, but rather on the use of AVNX technology in the current network (kind of like CREE with LEDS today) and the promise of what it can do tomorrow (kind of like CREE's RF and Blue Laser products in a few years). AVNX products look very much as if they are in the bowling alley at this time in regard to filters and DWDM and other products on the way.
So in this network MEMS are an irrelevancy, and at best a stop-gap measure on the way to this all optical network. Of course companies like Cisco and Juniper have vested interests in not moving away from the packet-based network. Which is what makes what AVNX wants to do so potentially discontinuous in the future; yet, YET, as the manual quite rightly states, continuous to the user. As it can largely be implemented in legacy network structures, and when it reaches the consumer, bandwidth is bandwidth.
So for the AVNX vision to come true one does not need to tear down the existing infrastructure, instead one supplements it, making for a continuous development towards reaching this all optical network.
Tinker
Again, AVNX across the chasm, and either in the bowling alley or beyond in filters and other products like amplifiers, but pre-chasm in any of this all optical circuit switched network. |
