The Lightwave Blog

Posted by Stephen Hardy

Speaking to a group of media and analysts after last Friday's OIF interoperability demo at Verizon's Waltham, MA, facility, the carrier's vice president of network architecture, Stuart Elby, said he expects that at least one of his current vendors, and perhaps as many as three, will deliver tenable 100-Gbps networking platforms by the end of this year. He added that he expects the platforms will be based on technology "like" the dual-polarized QPSK with coherent detection around which the OIF has rallied the industry (including Verizon), saying he believes the platforms will be "as close to that as exists" at the time.

Elby also said he expects that Verizon will deploy some of the equipment it receives, but not in large numbers. As was the case with 40G, he expects the first generation of 100G platforms will be extremely expensive, and greater deployment will wait until further iterations of the technology reduce 100G's price tag. He said he had doubts that 40G prices would ever reach a level 2.5 times that of 10G, partly because the price of 10G technology continues to shrink. He said that 100G might enjoy a more aggressive downward cost run than 40G, due to greater deployment in data center environments.

Labels: 100G, 40G, Verizon