Move to 100Gb/s on busy long-haul routes
27-01-2010
"The cost per bit looks like it's going to be less expensive at 100G" - Verizon
Telecom operators are currently assessing the move to 100 Gbps long haul optical network systems on high-traffic routes. U.S. telcos as usual are in the forefront. Last year Qwest said they would upgrade their long haul and metro network to deliver 100 Gbps Ethernet. Quest is leveraging Alcatel-Lucent's 7750 edge Service Router series and its Ultra Long-Haul optical platform to transport the 100 Gbps services over its network. More recently, Verizon, citing capacity constraints on a long haul network route between Paris, France and Germany, made the move to upgrade two optical connections to its core routers in these cities to 100 Gbps.
"Most of the routes where we are seeing capacity requirements on are our IP networks because that's where the high growth is," said Stu Elby, vice president of network architecture for Verizon. The company is preparing to convert the majority of its North American long-haul network from 10-Gb/s to 100 Gb/s.
Verizon provisioned what it calls a "true" 100G link between routers on its private IP network in the more than 900 kilometer span connecting Paris and Frankfurt, Germany. That means a wavelength carried 100-Gb/s in the same 50-gigahertz channel space that only carried 10 Gb/s in the more than 30 other wavelengths beside it in the fiber.
Verizon reached this milestone (the industry's first live, commercial 100G network) by upgrading the long-haul optical gear already in place in its European private IP backbone: Nortel Networks' OME 6500 platform, which has been deployed by many carriers to migrate from 10-Gb/s to 40-Gb/s networks but whose 100-Gb/s capabilities are only now becoming available.
Verizon has been testing the 100G gear of Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia Siemens Networks and Ciena in the lab and expects at least one of them to reach commercial availability of 100G next year. When that happens, Elby said, "We'll start looking for routes in the US that are exhausting [capacity] and put them in"
"The cost per bit looks like it's going to be less expensive at 100G" Elby said, not counting legacy 40G technology. "It might have to do with the fact that the vendors are projecting better volumes. 40G has had a very slow start...Also, the performance of 100G is better in terms of some of the bad fibers, with high [polarization mode dispersion]. Most 40G solutions really struggle or can't run at all on some of the bad fiber we have. There's routes in North America where we just can't do 40G; 100G works quite well on those"
Carriers have been debating skipping 40G for 100G for years. One of the factors thought to have delayed 100G development is the way the market has been fractured by multiple competing modulation technologies. Verizon hopes to help remedy that confusion with its move to DPQPSK (differential polarization quadrature phase shift keying) modulation. The carrier is hoping its embrace of DPQPSK will convince vendors to unify around it, yielding economies of scale and ultimately driving prices down.
Verizon wants to upgrade its US long-haul network to 100G before it converts to a next-generation technology that isn?t yet available: a mix of Optical Transport Networking (OTN) and multiprotocol label switching ? transport profile (MPLS-TP). Chips don't exist for that combination today, and Verizon is working with vendors to produce them, anticipating available gear sometime in 2011.
Sources: Fierce Telecom, LightReading
Telecom operators are currently assessing the move to 100 Gbps long haul optical network systems on high-traffic routes. U.S. telcos as usual are in the forefront. Last year Qwest said they would upgrade their long haul and metro network to deliver 100 Gbps Ethernet. Quest is leveraging Alcatel-Lucent's 7750 edge Service Router series and its Ultra Long-Haul optical platform to transport the 100 Gbps services over its network. More recently, Verizon, citing capacity constraints on a long haul network route between Paris, France and Germany, made the move to upgrade two optical connections to its core routers in these cities to 100 Gbps.
"Most of the routes where we are seeing capacity requirements on are our IP networks because that's where the high growth is," said Stu Elby, vice president of network architecture for Verizon. The company is preparing to convert the majority of its North American long-haul network from 10-Gb/s to 100 Gb/s.
Verizon provisioned what it calls a "true" 100G link between routers on its private IP network in the more than 900 kilometer span connecting Paris and Frankfurt, Germany. That means a wavelength carried 100-Gb/s in the same 50-gigahertz channel space that only carried 10 Gb/s in the more than 30 other wavelengths beside it in the fiber.
Verizon reached this milestone (the industry's first live, commercial 100G network) by upgrading the long-haul optical gear already in place in its European private IP backbone: Nortel Networks' OME 6500 platform, which has been deployed by many carriers to migrate from 10-Gb/s to 40-Gb/s networks but whose 100-Gb/s capabilities are only now becoming available.
Verizon has been testing the 100G gear of Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia Siemens Networks and Ciena in the lab and expects at least one of them to reach commercial availability of 100G next year. When that happens, Elby said, "We'll start looking for routes in the US that are exhausting [capacity] and put them in"
"The cost per bit looks like it's going to be less expensive at 100G" Elby said, not counting legacy 40G technology. "It might have to do with the fact that the vendors are projecting better volumes. 40G has had a very slow start...Also, the performance of 100G is better in terms of some of the bad fibers, with high [polarization mode dispersion]. Most 40G solutions really struggle or can't run at all on some of the bad fiber we have. There's routes in North America where we just can't do 40G; 100G works quite well on those"
Carriers have been debating skipping 40G for 100G for years. One of the factors thought to have delayed 100G development is the way the market has been fractured by multiple competing modulation technologies. Verizon hopes to help remedy that confusion with its move to DPQPSK (differential polarization quadrature phase shift keying) modulation. The carrier is hoping its embrace of DPQPSK will convince vendors to unify around it, yielding economies of scale and ultimately driving prices down.
Verizon wants to upgrade its US long-haul network to 100G before it converts to a next-generation technology that isn?t yet available: a mix of Optical Transport Networking (OTN) and multiprotocol label switching ? transport profile (MPLS-TP). Chips don't exist for that combination today, and Verizon is working with vendors to produce them, anticipating available gear sometime in 2011.
Sources: Fierce Telecom, LightReading
