Re: IEEE 40GE & 100GE

["Robert E. Seastrom" <rs () seastrom com>]

Deepak Jain <deepak () ai net> writes:

> > I'm on board with that as far as it goes, but has the scenario of
> > adjustable launch powers so that you don't ever need attenuators plus
> > the economy of scale that would come from having *one* type of
> > interface for 1m-10km runs been considered?  It seems to me based on
> > what I've seen of the optics market that once you make something a
> > mass-produced commodity the price falls awfully far - suppose the
> > price difference was $250 vs. $375, that's a big difference on a
> > percentage basis but pocket change on an absolute basis.
>
> I'm inclined to agree that when we are talking about unit numbers
> between 10km >> 40km optics, the marginal price change of a few bucks
> per optic (vs the human time to go and fix/groom/find/reduce optical
> losses) is pretty minimal.
>
> For that 1% of customers that finds their total cost significantly
> impacted (vs, say the cost of the equipment these are going into,
> etc).... would force 10% of us to have to engineer bypass
> cross-connect panels with fewer physical connections (and spliced ones
> at that) to get the job done.
>
> Just my guess... but no one has really complained about 10km reach
> optics being so expensive after the first 5 minutes they've been on
> the market.
>
> Personally, I wish this much cost could be cut out of the 80/120km
> optics market... but hey, no one is asking me.

So, the unspoken point of what I was suggesting is "why not two kinds
of optics: medium to short and super-long??  Simplifies sparing.

                                        ---Rob