ANAHEIM, Calif. — OFC/NFOEC — If 100Gbps Ethernet gathers pace quickly enough, it might put a crimp in the lifespan of the 40Gbps generation.
That’s one possibility being discussed here at OFC/NFOEC, as industry executives wonder whether 40Gbps might see a shortened lifespan due to pressure from both 10- and 100Gbps alternatives.
“We see the 40Gbps deployment as more of a stepping stone,” says Saeid Aramideh, vice president of marketing for CoreOptics Inc. “Not that we have stopped our activity there, but certainly we see our future being 100Gbps-based. My personal belief is that with the coming of 100Gbps transmission in the WAN, the 40Gbps life cycle could be short-lived.”
Metro and long-haul 100Gbps deployments are years off — most sources are saying 2012; AT&T Inc. has suggested 2010 — while 40Gbps deployments are underway now. AT&T has lit its OC768 backbone, and here at OFC/NFOEC, Verizon Communications Inc. officials said they also plan to build a 40Gbps core.
But here’s the catch. It’s generally accepted that for 40Gbps sales to take off, enabling 40Gbps to usurp 10Gbps, the cost should be no more than 2 to 2.5 times as much as 10Gbps. So far, 40Gbps prices aren’t there.
“The cost economics of 10Gbps are so strong right now, it’s limiting 40Gbps to only those cases where they have to use it,” says Roy Rubenstein, research director with the transceiver market research firm, LightCounting . A typical, short-reach, 40Gbps transceiver can carry a $20,000 to $25,000 price tag, he notes.
So, if 100Gbps optics manage to catch up by costing, say, about five times as much as 10Gbps, could that cut short the 40Gbps generation? “Depending on where 40Gbps moves, you might see an intercept point with 100Gbps, but it’s too early to tell,” says Mike Ricci, a senior vice president at JDS Uniphase Corp.
What might make that intercept point possible is the amount of attention being lavished on 100Gbps transmission. The 100Gbps name-dropping at OFC/NFOEC includes prominent vendors such as Alcatel-Lucent, Infinera Corp, and CoreOptics customer Siemens Communications Group .
“There’s a window for 40Gbps. If people get the prices right, they can have a chance,” LightCounting’s Rubenstein says.
The optics vendors pushing 40Gbps don’t appear too worried, considering 100Gbps transmission is still pretty far from reality. “If there’s a need for 100Gbps, it’ll happen, but at this point I don’t see a significant threat to the investments made in 40Gbps,” says Ed Cornejo, director of product marketing at Opnext Inc.
That doesn’t mean Opnext is ignoring the next wave, as it’s already engaging in 100Gbps laser research in its lab. On a panel at Monday’s Optical Society of America Executive Forum, Opnext CEO Harry Bosco said the tough part, when it comes to transceivers, will be finding the chips to work at that speed.
And recent M&A activity shows confidence in the upcoming 40Gbps market. Two of this week’s acquisitions — Kailight Photonics Ltd. by Optium Corp., and Kodeos Communications Inc. by Finisar Corp. — “show people are getting serious about their 40Gbps portfolios,” Rubenstein says. Kailight is shipping 40Gbps modules, while Kodeos, more of a 10Gbps vendor, uses long-haul encoding techniques that could be useful at 40Gbps, he says.
— Craig Matsumoto, West Coast Editor, Light Reading
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