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IP: RE: SEE THE LIGHT BOUNCE: Edupage, March 26, 2001
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 06:33:49 -0500
John, The real question on the table is : is packet switching at all rational in the all optical networks of the future. My estimate is the answer is no. A long time ago Len Kleinrock and myself independently wrote articles strongly suggesting that the nature of very high speed networks was not friendly to TCP/IP and the nature of optics is not, in my opinion , friendly to conventional packet switching. Dave At 05:59 PM 3/26/2001 -0800, you wrote:
From: John Shoch <shoch () alloyventures com> To: "'farber () cis upenn edu'" <farber () cis upenn edu> Well, let's not get completely buried by the hype... --I hope everyone understands that the "current generation of switches" described here is (I presume) the electro-mechanical switches used to reconfigure optical links. The "all optical" MEMS and bubble systems have switching times which make them useful for configuring and reconfiguring optical links, but they do not switch at rates which allow them to become real-time packet switches. Thus, they will not displace real packet routers from Cisco, Juniper, et al. --In-line signal conversion may add expense, but it does not (by itself) add congestion. Optical signals can be amplified, but over time, and distance, the signal degrades. Optical signals passing through optical switches will, in many cases, eventually have to be re-generated -- which will still be done by going through an O-E-O (optical-electronic-optical) conversion. John Shoch Alloy Ventures
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- IP: RE: SEE THE LIGHT BOUNCE: Edupage, March 26, 2001 David Farber (Mar 27)