Kenneth, well looking at HLIT's architecture,some of the additional equipment that would be elmininated are the hub buildings and related equipment. HLIT's system uses invisible hubs,thus cutting out all the related costs associated with building and servicing those areas.
The trade offs in cost,are spending the money on advanced optoelectronics,instead of physical space.
What you run over DWDM does not really matter much,it can handle any medium from Sonet to ATM to analog video. I posted an article recently of the little need in the future of ATM under DWDM lambda.
It is looking like a Sonet mesh layer 1,is about all your really need,and even that is of minor use. Yes lambda switching is coming,HLIT does it with an optical add/drop multiplexor at the hub,combining the 1550 nm analog broadcast with the narrowcast internet and retransmitting at 1310 nm. The beauty of this is that all long haul DWDM is totally compatible and interoperable. Will we eventually have transparent switching? Probably some day,but the cost and engineering is way to high,and interoperability issues many.
It does not have to be confined in HLIT's architecture to a LAN,it is a WAN system,fully compatible with any other optical transmission equipment.
It is a significant threat to BAY,CSCO, et all,and the future of telecom infrastructure. CSCO is working with CIEN on DWDM,BAY is now part of NT,and still working with Cambrian.
So all the big players are aligning themselves with optical equipment manufacturers.
Tim |
