Page 266 - Optical Switching And Networking Handbook

11_200023_CH10/Bates 1/17/01 9:06 AM Page 251

The Future of Optical Networking (Where Is It All Heading?) 251

Figure 10-11
SOHO connections
at 100-Mbps
Ethernet SOHO

HUB
100 Base T
Router 100 Mbps
Fiber
100 Mbps
Ethernet
CO 100 Mbps
M
U
X

Corporation

masse the world may change again. What was considered a dead
technology—circuit switching—can now emerge to be the way we
use our networks in the future. Optical provisioning that took weeks,
if not months, will become a circuit-switched operation that can hap-
pen in seconds. If this is possible, the end user will be able to provi-
sion a wavelength between two ends in the future. A nailed-up
connection can be created using a different lambda (l) to carry an
immense amount of data and video at the 10 to 40 Gbps rate, as
shown in Figure 10-13. Because the optical systems will have extra
bandwidth available, a user can literally establish a point-to-point
connection and nail it up for the duration of the need (minutes,
hours, days).The cost of the bandwidth will plummet as we continue
to proceed through this decade, thus making on-demand dial-up pro-
visioning a reality and an economical choice.
This means that we are in the never-ending shift of technological
innovation. The industry has evolved from circuit switching to
packet switching. Next, we will evolve from packet switching to
wavelength (circuit) switching. What goes around comes around.
There must be some way to predict what the impact of this shift is
going to have on the carriers. Functionally, we can expect that the
cost per bit, cost per minute, or the cost per transaction will contin-