Bandwidth bonanza raises question over need - Industry Trend or Event

While some carriers are boosting bandwidth for new data services, others say service differentiation would be enabled by better use of existing capacity

Carriers may be racing to boost the transmission capacity of their networks, but others question whether users want such bandwidth hikes just yet.

For certain carriers, introducing the latest dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) optical transmission equipment to boost the capacity of their existing fiber makes economic sense. They can accommodate growing data traffic while avoiding the equipment costs associated with lighting new fibers. Moreover, it will enable new and improved services such as application hosting and remote backing up of customer data in real-time.

Other carriers and some analysts, however, question this relentless pursuit of the latest optical transmission technology. "There is far too much bandwidth around," said Susen Sarkar, principal analyst, the Yankee Group Europe, Watford, England. He points out that the wavelength sales market between European carriers this year is only 200-300 wavelengths, each with speeds of 2.5 gigabits per second.

"We're finding now that there is a gap between what people say they want and what they actually need," added Cherise Emerson, chief information officer at pan-European carriers' carrier Storm Telecom Ltd., London.

However, that is not stopping the likes of KPNQwest of Hoofddorp in the Netherlands. It recently claimed an industry first in linking two German cities using 40-Gbps single light waves, using the latest DWDM equipment from Alcatel SA, and 10 gigabit channel IP routers from Juniper Networks Inc.

"In the last year to 18 months, operators have moved to 2.5 gigabits per second and are now deploying 10 links," said Henjo Groenewegen, chief operating officer at KPNQwesr. "Given the increase in the demand for bandwidth of Internet service providers, we are looking to deploy 40-Gbps channels by the end of 2000 or the beginning of 2001."

Rapid downloads

A 40-Gbps data transmission on a single wavelength is fast enough to deliver more than 750 studio quality streaming video channels simultaneously or transmit the complete contents of the Encyclopedia Britannica in a quarter of a second, according to Alcatel.

KPNQwest believes having 40Gbps wavelengths will enhance the quality of service it offers users of its planned 18 cybercenters (CWI, 17 April, p.1). "Having the higher speeds [of 40-Gbps lightwaves] will allow us to better control the quality of service of the whole network IP layer," said Groenewegen.

Peter Manning, chief operating officer at London-based European metropolitan network operator Colt Telecom Group plc, is also unsurprised by carriers' craving for bandwidth. "I'm never surprised by the demand [for capacity] of the industry," he said.

Colt has seen demand for corporates linking their local area networks rise in the last 18 months from sub 2-megabit-per-second links to 45 Mbps and above. In turn, larger corporates are now requesting 1-Gbps links between sites, while others such as financial institutions want their critical data to be remotely backed up in real time, requiring multi-gigabit links.

Real-time needs

Manning cites a request from a financial institution that wants to back up its data to a remote site in real time. To meet the requirement, a multi-gigabit link is needed to the remote storage site, which cannot be further than 20 kilometers away if the real-time requirement is to be meet. "The constraint here is the speed of light," said Manning.

Storm's Emerson believes that operators should be focused on how they provision bandwidth. "Supplying more bandwidth is not the game but how to use the bandwidth you have more flexibly," she said, adding that the new services enabled by this will create differentiation between carriers.

Such services include enabling broadcasters to request high bandwidth links for short periods, broadcasting events such as the recent Euro 2000 soccer tournament via fiber rather than satellite.

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