Re: Alien waves

[Brandon Martin <lists.nanog () monmotha net>]

On 7/20/21 4:44 PM, Saku Ytti wrote:
> I'm going to hazard a guess that the exhaustive list is empty. Allowing 
> 3rd parties to launch alien waves to your system puts your existing 
> waves at the mercy of the 3rd party, power or lack thereof from the 
> alien wave may impact operation of other waves.

While it might be different for subsea, especially transoceanic, simply 
due to market factors, I suspect this is the case on most long-haul 
routes of consequence.  Even the carriers I've talked to who have it 
productized in their sales catalog with documentation as to the 
responsibilities of all parties essentially refuse to sell it in practice.

The only traction I've gotten was if I wanted to buy half the C-band 
spectrum on a new route not yet lit and was willing to sign a very 
long-term (20 year-ish) contract for it.  Essentially it was treated 
similar to an IRU on half the bandwidth on the route and came lit 
end-to-end.  They were willing/able to do this since they could use 
red/blue filters and separate VOAs and OPMs to keep things in check at 
the entry/exit points of the line system.  This isn't really practical 
if you're dealing with just a couple hundred GHz or have frequent need 
to add/drop it.

--
Brandon Martin