Ovum RHK claims 'generation fiber' has different outlook than 'boomers'

Karen Liu, VP Components

The hot topics for OFC/NFOEC reveal a generational shift in how issues are framed, according to Karen Liu, Vice President of Components at Ovum RHK. Active optical cables, more holistic approaches to 10/40/100Gbp data rates, and a new focus on size and power exemplify the new outlook. Even consumer markets appear within grasp.

The comparisons in US election coverage between the baby-boomer supporters of Clinton and the millennial supporters of Obama have me thinking about generational shifts. As OFC/NFOEC approaches, technical progress is only half the story, as a shift is underway in how issues are defined (see Table 1).

Table 1 Generational issues shift

Old school	New school
Optics versus copper in datacom	Active optical cable
40Gbps versus 100Gbps in telecom	40 and 100Gbps in telecom and datacom
Cost of tenability	Size of tunability
Telecom crossover to datacom volumes	Datacom crossover to consumer volumes

Source: Ovum RHK

Active optical cables emerged suddenly as a product category in mid-2007. At last count, there were six vendors offering products in this area. These were not the result of a co-ordinated multi-source agreement (MSA) development; nor were they all driven by the same large customers. They don't even aim at the same application. While four vendors' products (Zarlink, Intel, Xloom and Tyco) use the CX4 connector for 10GbE and Infiniband, Finisar's product is serial 10Gbps and Luxtera's uses the QSFP connector for 40Gbps. Below we highlight the differing viewpoints of the old and new school thinking:

• old school - optics versus copper: optics is clearly superior in bandwidth-distance products and therefore will win as soon as the next speed jump comes. In the meantime, it is a high-end product with a justified premium
• new school - active optical cable: the equipment maker and the end customer would rather not get dragged into the struggle between copper and optical. Universal ports and cable operations will help the total market and reduce barriers for optics. I want business and volume so I need to be price competitive with copper.

In the last year, the debate about 40Gbps and 100Gbps has been resolved into an agreement to go forward with both data rates with technology coordination between the two to minimize investment burden. Actually, there were two separate versions of the debate, one for telecom distances and one for datacom. While telecom has moved from the expected 40Gbps to add 100Gbps to its plans, datacom has added 40Gbps to its 100Gbps plans. Proposals for both 40 and 100GbE use multiple lanes of 10Gbps to extend the relevance of 10Gbps technologies. In fact, the IEEE HSSG believes 100Gbps switches will enable more 10GbE in the data center.

The interplay between ITU and IEEE worlds continues, but the commercial motivations have subtly shifted. When 10Gbps first came out, telecom was there first, focused on its own core capacity. Only later did the coincidence of data rates suggest that telecom vendors could leverage technology to cross over to the potentially larger datacom market. Today, 40Gbps DWDM transport is driven by core router interfaces - but these core routers are still part of the core network. Service providers now believe that 100GbE will be the client traffic of the future, including wholesale or business customer traffic.

Despite interest in aligning with ITU, the datacom folks are more concerned about aligning the disparate elements of the data center: servers, switches, chips, and backplanes are in the midst of their own roadmap shifts on a number of levels. While a portion of the DWDM market continues to use fixed transmitters for cost minimization, equipment vendors face a tough decision regarding the trade-off between tunability and density. Until now, designs with XFP density had to sacrifice fullband tunability. Now that tunable XFP is becoming available (JDSU has announced the critical high-density TOSA), some system vendors already want (fixed) SFP+ density on their platforms.

As for the potential to reach high-volume applications, telecom and datacom are mounting separate attacks on the consumer or end-user market. In telecom, FTTH deployments are driving product and practices toward fiber optics being easier to use and testable by non-specialists. Datacom vendors see the connected home moving to similar data rates as enterprise and conjecture that optics will be attractive for extending reach. For example, HDMI (high-definition multimedia interface) requires 5Gbps in the home. Admittedly, this is a special case, but there are other examples, such as Optical Display Port and USB 3.0. That makes three separate formats for the home in the range of 5-10Gbps and (with optics) 10s of meters.

What other new-school thinking does 'generation fiber' have in store?

With seven years' experience in analysis and twenty-one years' experience in networking, Karen Liu's industry experience encompasses both the technical and marketing aspects of the DWDM transition in optical networks. Having been on both the supplier and customer side of cutting-edge optical components, she has hands-on appreciation for networks, systems architecture and the interaction with the component technology. At Ovum, Karen works on a number of projects on disruptive technology introduction and she also authored the first detailed forecast for ATCA platforms.