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To: CPAMarty who wrote (28211)	1/17/1998 10:33:00 AM
From: BillyG	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

Marty, I don't think that WDM is a threat to compression technology, for a number of reasons: 1. WDM is useful only for optical systems, which for now means fiber optics. It is the the equivalent of transmitting signals at several frequencies over one communication link, which is already done on cable systems and satellites. 2. WDM is expensive, so it is used on backbone fiber systems. There is a seemingly unlimited demand for bandwidth on backbones, and you pay for usage on a bandwidth basis, so operators would rather send more compressed signals instead of fewer uncompressed signals over the same bandwidth (for the same transmission cost). The end equipment cost (encoding and decoding) costs extra, but it is a one-time cost, whereas transmission bandwidth is a bandwidth X hourly cost. 3. MPEG2 compression is approximately 200 to 1, and typical WDM systems are 8 to 1 or 16 to 1. 4. Related to my point #1, WDM cannot be used for (non-military) satellite, cable, or wireless transmission, or for tape, disc or DVD storage. Compression works in all of these mediums. As you can see, WDM is really a different type of animal than video compression. I think that what you're really asking is whether video compression would be needed if everyone had access to unlimited bandwidth and storge. The answer to that is no, but of course that day ain't coming soon! Until then, we'll need video compression.