AUSTIN, Texas – Industry panelists at the IEEE GlobeCom show pointed to 100G data capacity speeds in dense metro areas as a quickly emerging HetNet trend.
Buddy Shaw of Windstream Communications said carriers are working hard to keep up with the data capacity demanded by enterprise and residential customers.
“Consumers want a dynamic network, which they can control themselves,” Shaw told a group at the Austin event. “That’s different, right? We’ve always built static.”
He said that bandwidth demands will require major upgrades to existing telecommunication infrastructure.
“100 gig is, definitely, from our perspective, a long-term winner. We’re looking at the metro space. Anywhere we’re doing expansion right now, it’s always about 100 gig.”
“The metro environment is where the bigger demand set is getting ready to take place. Across the broad spectrum of customers we serve, they’re all looking for additional capacity.”
Shaw said the demand is being met with upgrades in hardware designed for interoperability between carriers, vendors and other network stakeholders.
“That’s convenience,” he said. “That’s what the customers want.”
Looking ahead, Shaw said, “I see a box I don’t have to touch. You drop it once. Then I want that box to have all the intelligence. I want to do it from a software perspective and real time.”
Fujitsu’s Principal Product Planner Mike Sabelhaus discussed the vendor’s perspective on what her termed the “photonic network evolution. Over time … from the mid 2010s time frame, we started into a dynamic mesh network with 100G coherent type of optics.”
But how can that service be offered when “you still have lots of legacy equipment out there?”
He said some of the keys are physical upgrades to network circuitry, use of optical transport networks and integrating more network automation.
“Moving forward, the flexible dynamic mesh network, next generation [reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer architecture], are what we’re seeing. We’re seeing a large, large service provider population that’s actually driving the need for more flexible, dynamic networks.”
“Carriers such as Fujitsu are more than happy to move forward in that area.”
