McAdams -- GEF 1

Opportunity and Necessity

Gigabit Ethernet over Fiber (GEF)June 2002

Prof. Alan K. McAdams

Cornell University akm3@cornell.edu

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First Generation

• CA*Net1 was an ATM network

• Based on the commercial offering of Telco-based Technology in a pre-DSL era

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Second Generation• A simple network

– CA*net2 was IP over ATM over SONET (making IP the only protocol) the first implementation of a nationwide IP-only network

– The cost of the network was “astoundingly” lower than any prior implementation of a nationwide network (see below)

– The IP-only concept was then spread to research and education institutions with a need of interconnecting sites across a metro network to a Gigapop

• Elsewhere, Ethernets were evolving within enterprise organizations’ R&E LANs at increasing bandwidths -- soon reaching Gigabit levels

• The intersection of the IP-only network and the Gigabit Ethernet LAN soon demonstrated the enormous enhancement brought forward by Ethernet as a transport mechanism through its interaction with optical fiber

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G i g a P O P

C A * n e t 3 N a t i o n a l O p t i c a l I n t e r n e t

V a n c o u v e r

C a l g a r y R e g i n aW i n n i p e g

O t t a w a

M o n t r e a l

T o r o n t o

H a l i f a x

S t . J o h n ’ s

F r e d e r i c t o nC h a r l o t t e t o w n

O R A N

B C n e t

N e t e r a S R n e t M R n e t

O N e t R I S Q

A C O R N

C h i c a g oS T A R T A P

C A * n e t 3 P r i m a r y R o u t e

S e a t t l e

N e w Y o r k

C A * n e t 3 D i v e r s e R o u t e

D e p l o y in g a 4 c h a n n e l C W D M G ig a b i t E t h e r n e t

n e t w o r k – 4 0 0 k m

D e p l o y in g a 4 c h a n n e l G ig a b i t

E t h e r n e t t r a n s p a r e n t o p t i c a l D W D M –

1 5 0 0 k m

M u l t ip l e C u s t o m e r O w n e d D a r k F ib e r

N e tw o r k s c o n n e c t i n g

u n i v e r s i t i e s a n d s c h o o ls

1 6 c h a n n e l D W D M- 8 w a v e l e n g t h s @ O C - 1 9 2 r e s e r v e d f o r C A N A R I E- 8 w a v e l e n g t h s f o r c a r r i e r a n d o t h e r c u s t o m e r s

C o n s o r t i u m P a r t n e r s :B e l l N e x x ia

N o r t e lC is c o

J D S U n ip h a s eN e w b r id g e

C o n d o D a r k F ib e r N e tw o r k s

c o n n e c t i n g u n i v e r s i t i e s a n d

s c h o o ls

C o n d o F ib e r N e tw o r k l i n k i n g a l l

u n i v e r s i t i e s a n d h o s p i t a l

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Third Generation

• CA*Net3 was IP over PPP over point-to-point SONET– Removed the need for ATM– Removed the need for SONET ring resiliency

• Repeat: Bill St-Arnaud, “We were astounded by the cost reduction in orders of magnitude” [by optimizing for the transport of data in the form of IP packets, by removing unnecessary ATM and SONET ring resiliency features].

• A further cost decline came from the synergies that arose from the interaction between less costly Ethernet transceivers and Optical Fiber, lowering the costs by another order of magnitude.

• It soon become clear that the Ethernet-LAN could now extend to distances encompassing tens of kilometers, making possible the use cost-effective LAN-equipment to achieve the same goals of more complex and expensive WAN technologies such as ATM/SONET.

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Telcos provision Gig-E networks

• As demonstrated by SCT BOCES’s “Diffusion Gig-E Network” (see below), – Verizon built, owns, and operates a pure Gig-E network– This network supplies a Gigabit to every school in each of 8

school districts (in upstate NY) as a leased-bandwidth service offering from Verizon.

• The neighboring Broome-Tioga BOCES provides services through a network which they have built using dark fiber from Time Warner Telecom and the Telco, thereby being able to deploy more-quickly such technologies as WDM.

• Over 1,000 schools in Quebec have a similar network design

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SCT BOCES

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Problems for Telcos

• Without the use of ATM, SONET technologies can meet customer expectations in terms of speeds and reliability at lower cost, thereby undermining the need for Telco services

• It is now possible for small users to satisfy their data networking requirements without using carrier transmission equipment

• 10GigE is down the line, providing another factor of improvement and challenging the best telco offerings (of OC-192 at $1M per POP) with switches that cost <$100k

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Therefore …

• TTG5 (distributed to all) presents technical analysis of what GEF involves

• Gigabit Ethernet is here to stay

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Broadband technologies

• ADSL

• Cable Modem

• Licensed Wireless

• Unlicensed Wireless

• Satellite

• Ethernet over Fiber

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Origins• DSL and Cable Modem

– Incremental additions to existing, mature-infrastructure technologies• Licensed Wireless

– Initially costly due to licenses and high frequencies• Unlicensed Wireless

– Only way for independent ISPs to get in the broadband business given the level of open access provided by incumbent LECs and Cable Operators

• Satellite– Will eventually happen, but will never match the speed of fiber

• GEF– Grew from the enterprise environment (see below)– Gained market acceptance, and – Advanced to the point where it is “ready for prime time,” even in

residential deployments

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Market Structures: I

• Telco infrastructure was created under monopoly conditions and explicit government regulation

• The incentive structures that resulted led to the deployment of costly, though effective, voice-centric solutions

• The guaranteed returns on the asset base resulted in long-lived debt as the mechanism for funding equipment

• Cross-subsidization required of the AT&T parent still remains in access fees between long distance and local users

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Market Structures: I

• Telcos still retain strong market power in the local loop but nonetheless are being subjected to competitive pressures.

• The structures of technology, equipment, pricing and funding has proven fragile in the presence of even this level of competition.

• The financial viability of even the strongest of the ILECs is now being questioned by leading financial market analysts.

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Market Structures: II

• Cable modem providers are also under severe financial pressure as result of …– Highly leveraged debt structure and – Increased pressure on their core video services from direct to

home satellite providers

• The architecture of the cable network was created for one way broadcast and has been retrofitted (HFC Network) to accommodate two way communications

• Both technologies (cable modem and DSL) are currently offered in the 1 Mbps range, and neither technology is easily capable of improvements greater than a single order of magnitude in the near future.

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Market Structures: III

• GEF is at an early stage in its technology-life, as noted above• It is already deployable at 10 gigabit per second speeds • The GiG-E technology had its origins with the military-research-

university community– The objectives of these institutions was to achieve exchange of

knowledge of information, not to account for bits transferred across the wire

• GigE best embodied the optical, packet-based, always-on network• The network was created, from the ground up, to permit multiple

service offerings– It has shown significant resistance to profitable private sector operation

(e.g., the “dot-com” experience has shown that it is hard to make money)

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Conclusion

• Three way competition (ILEC, Cable, Gig-E) continues to erode the financial position of the ILECs and of the firms providing cable modem service

• Profitable operation of these types of networks requires– Limitation of availability and – Presence of market power

• Neither of which is easily achieved for GEF• Enormous opportunity for not-for-profit players• Market is ripe for upset-entrant(s) as leader-

catalyst(s) to change the paradigm