Re: Alien Waves

[Mark Tinka <mark@tinka.africa>]

On 5/13/24 04:07, Dave Cohen wrote:

> My point was that the technology has little to do with the operational 
> success of the service. Spectrum controllers better enabling providers 
> to get out of their own way in selling spectrum did not actually 
> enable the providers* to get out of their own way in selling spectrum. 
> It *should* be easier than it used to be, but it isn't, and the 
> problem is not really technical, but a question of 1) not having 
> full-throated commitment to wanting to sell spectrum and 2) not having 
> the talent to support it, which is really just a function of #1.

Fundamentally, I agree.

This is one area where terrestrial operators will be late bloomers, as 
subsea shows and leads the way.

My prediction is that there will be a slightly improved chance of 
spectrum services gaining a little more traction (not a lot) on the 
terrestrial side when the new-age DWDM vendors are able to offer more 
competitive and standards-based spectrum controllers.

The other avenue of interest will be in mitigating the costs associated 
with upgrading to C+L network topologies, where some spectrum comes up 
for grabs as a quick way to recover the investment.

And lastly, content folk looking to enter markets on the back of 
existing operators where the appetite for negotiating dark fibre is 
relatively low, will apply pressure on those reluctant operators to 
offer up some spectrum. We have already seen, across the world, how 
"convincing" the content folk have been at this sort of thing.

But for the most part, yes, I expect the bulk of DWDM services sold to 
terrestrial network users will continue to be electrical bandwidth, and 
not optical spectrum, at least for the next few years. I could 
potentially see a case for a specialist DWDM operator who focuses on a 
spectrum-based service network that sells to 3 - 5 high-capacity 
customers, but those will be very specialist.

Mark.