At the recent European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC) in Geneva, we noted significant progress in many areas of technology which we have either written about recently or will shortly: ROADM architectures, 100+ Gbps transport, and 10G/40G/100G transceivers.

 

While some attendees complained the show was lackluster, we believe the absence of drama is a sign the industry is moving rapidly and smoothly. The event had the paradoxically motionless feel of cars driving at full speed on a well-paved highway. Last year, Google shook up the establishment with its push for nonstandard 10×10 modules in an effort to speed up the market. This year, established vendors had a flurry of new product demonstrations that left researchers scrambling to stay ahead of commercial development.

 

Last year, we described the ROADM architecture desired by operators as “elusive”. The challenge to provide colorless, directionless, possibly contentionless, and finally, flexible grid functionality had…OEMs and component vendors tied in knots – as much as their complicated block diagrams connecting too many components together.

 

We now see the industry has broken free and is moving forward again. Major component suppliers were at the show advocating a solution, and the same solution to boot. The block diagrams we saw in discussions with CoAdna, Finisar, JDSU, and NeoPhotonics were the same. The base technologies and implementations continue to differ, though all vendors are supporting the flexible grid.

 

Consensus does not mean that all ROADMs will immediately jump on board with full functionality. Operator choice of how much flexibility to adopt is expected to differ based on traffic patterns as well as cost of labor. Contentionless appears the most likely attribute to be left behind in the cost-benefit trade-off.