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To: DenverTechie who wrote (2073)	9/28/1998 10:57:00 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 12823

DenverTechie, That was some really superb writing and reporting. That's what SI should have more of! Your point, and that of the author's, about SONET's continued rise can be attributed to several factors which may escape casual inspection. The increase in overall demand is self apparent. But its displacement role vis a vis a vast and still-very-extensive presence of asynchronous T3s which are still out there, as you noted, is largely understated. When an unprotected, asynchronous T3 is upgraded to SONET, this usually amounts to a doubling of the node density due to the higher levels of sophistication inherent in SONET, and the need for supporting failover capabilities. And a fact that often gets lost is this: As the Internet increases in its overall size, as a function of meshed routes and overalys, and as more high-cap access lines are needed to get to the cloud by enterprises of all types and shapes, the higher the demand for non-IP access technologies becomes at rougly the same growth rate rate [maybe more, due to its lack of statistical advantage that the Internet possesses] at both the physical (SONET) and data link layers (ATM/FR), in order to enable users to reach that cloud. Indeed, even the core of the Internet continues to be comprised of a seemingly inordinate amount of Layer 1 and 2 SONET/ATM technologies in order to support the growing levels of IP internal to the cloud. Also, while Packet over SONET may do away with great numbers of SONET add-drop mux nodes (transport elements) in the future, the underlying SONET will still be there for some time to come, necessitating optical cross connects due to the need to have some means of traffic management and administrative controls. Which all brings us back to your point about the staying power of Optical and Digital Cross Connects outfitted with optical interfaces. Likewise, as dial up access accounts continue their rise, so too do the number of end-office switch ports and local loops increase. Ironically, what we are seeing is an increase in the overall number of legacy services occurring (as opposed to just to the opposite, as would seem logical) in order to accommodate the emerging newer (IP) model. Carriers, even ISPs, still have not developed other means to groom, manage and administer multiple & disparate forms of traffic where large populations of routes and end users are concerned, economically. Yet. And DCSs operating at very high SONET rates will become a favorite network element with ISPs and carriers alike for peering purposes, such as those which take place at network access points for high-capacity TCP/IP streams. It seems counterintuitive, I know, but it's happening. Regards, Frank Coluccio

To: DenverTechie who wrote (2073)	9/30/1998 5:59:00 AM
From: Hiram Walker	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 12823

DenverTechie, are you speaking about a transparent AON? That is many years out,but an opaque add/drop at the hub is here right now. It is much easier to add/drop and then retransmit from the hub. This allows interoperability from anyone's equipment, since it is retransmitted using narrowcast transmitters to the nodes. A transparent cross connect is many years away and possibly totally unnecessary. I was looking for the article about opaque add/drops but can't find it. Hiram