To: justone who wrote (873 ) 9/20/2000 10:35:11 PM From: Frank A. Coluccio Respond to of 46821 I do believe that you've touched on the crux of St. Arnaud's optical border gateway protocol work that was highlighted in this month's Cook Report..."And I suppose if you let end users control path set up and tear down, you would lose control of the network. For a whole lot less than the amount of money, say Tellabs has made over the years, you could design and deploy autonomous switching and recovery software for a switch that didn't need 800 signaling types, 200 features, and a monster OA&M, in a couple of years. Mind you you'd need a standard- MGCP with variable bandwidth, anyone? I wonder if anyone is working on this for bandwidth on demand. Of course there are minor issues like billing to consider. And there is a 'grass is always greener' effect in software- other peoples jobs always seem easier from the outside." And some of the reasons why it will be a hard win, if it ever actually comes to fruition:And I suppose if you let end users control path set up and tear down, you would lose control of the network. For a whole lot less than the amount of money, say Tellabs has made over the years, you could design and deploy autonomous switching and recovery software for a switch that didn't need 800 signaling types, 200 features, and a monster OA&M, in a couple of years." These are the obstacles that were listed to the neutral optical exchange point, in St. Arnaud's eyes, and I've agreed with this view for a long time. We just went over these same points about two weeks ago, comparing the SS7-like "overlay" control plane that the OIF recommends. I.e, the carriers don't want to lose control of their architectures, and keeping tabs of who speaks to who and when. And the standards bodies, driven by the largest vendors, would design to meet these needs of the largest carriers, thus ingratiating their way into extending their sales to them, and at the same time extending the carriers' control, into the future. And so it goes now, and so it went always. FAC