40G Will Drive Mesh Networking

Implications: 1.      Suppliers that have been making optical switches since the bubble, including Calient and Glimmerglass, were planning to use redundant switching. 2.      With 40G, the bits are flying off so fast  -- going with a switch protect is not viable. 3.      Mesh networking with an optical control plane will be necessary.

Analysis:  Ciena’s inability to provide 50-millisecond switch protection held up some sales of the CoreDirector for a while.  Of course, now the supplier has that capability.  But with 40G systems, switching has to be done in five miliseconds – and nobody is going to be able to pull that off without using a mesh architecture.  

With 40G optical circuits between Washington, DC and Los Angeles, a big optical mesh network will be deployed.  If there is a failure, it just reconfigures itself at the lambda level.   

Ciena executives have made it clear that they see a lot of opportunities for expansion with mesh software.  It seems that one of the advantages in purchasing World Wide Packets is to bolster that kind of development.  

As a side note, while an interexchange carrier may have a 24-count fiber in the network, it could be using only two pairs.  There can be a lot of DWDM on it.  So, the need for deploying 40G on new fibers has to be kept in perspective.