Re: Routed optical networks

[Mark Tinka <mark@tinka.africa>]

On 5/2/23 22:28, Eve Griliches wrote:

> So right Jared....magic has been in the NPU capacity increase that's 
> driven the cost per 100G down on 1RU routers;

But that has only mainly solved for speed. Features have taken a hit, 
especially if the operator is motivated by the costs of merchant silicon.

There has been a marked improvement of features from merchant silicon, 
both from their vendors as well as the router OEM's that implement them 
in clever ways to work around their restrictions, but there are still 
some things only in-house silicon can do, at a price point most 
operators are not comfortable to pay anymore.

I think that as more of the Internet collapses into the hands of a few 
public cloud and content providers, operators are likely to place less 
and less importance on features, and just focus on speed, since the 
public Internet offers very little guarantees, if not none at all. I'm 
keen to see how this pans out.


> and the integration of DSPs and more into QSFP-DD form factors at 
> much lower power than expected.

Coherent has certainly changed the game, no doubt. If you grow steadily, 
you can wait for the evolution to make it into the IP/MPLS. If you need 
to move faster, you can't ignore the importance of Transport options in 
your network.

Mark.