2020 was certainly an eventful year. At the outset, it would have been difficult to predict the emergence of a global pandemic, and equally difficult to have predicted the impact COVD-19 would have on our lives. From lockdowns to quarantines, COVID-19 impacted virtually everyone. 2020 saw significant changes in the way we work, interact, and live. And if we learned one thing from 2020, it was the importance of the network in virtually every aspect of our lives: our ability to work, shop, interact, and stay connected even while remaining physically apart.
#1: Global Drive for Enhanced Broadband Connectivity
Because reliable broadband connectivity is critical to effectively function in society today, particularly in a COVID-19 environment, many governments throughout the world are recognizing the role they need to play in ensuring reliable broadband services are available to as many people as possible. As a result, we expect to see increased support for public funding of broadband networks across physical geographies and socioeconomically diverse neighborhoods. As one example, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) ReConnect Program is investing hundreds of millions of dollars in grants and loans to bring high-speed broadband connectivity to rural and underserved areas. In addition, the 2020 CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) Act provided incremental funding to the program. Such support will only increase in 2021 (source link).
Look for 2021 to show an increase in involvement from governments looking to help network operators provide better and more ubiquitous high-speed broadband services.
#2: Continued…and Accelerated...Shift to the Cloud
Rob Shore,
SVP,
Infinera
2020 also highlighted the importance of the cloud and cloud-based services. With people being forced to work remotely and limited in-person interactions, the cloud played a critical role in remote collaboration and engagement. From file sharing to video conferencing, the cloud, powered by a robust infrastructure network, proved essential to overcome the challenges that underscored 2020.
We also saw the beginning of new ideas on how to push the boundaries of how both individuals and businesses can leverage cloud-based services to stay productive and connected, enabling them to accomplish things more easily and effectively remotely. In 2021 and beyond, we should expect to see several new innovative cloud-based solutions to increase productivity for at-home workers and more engaging ways to interact remotely. Businesses are clearly embracing this concept to provide employees more flexibility and to reduce operating expenses with fewer and smaller physical locations. Companies like Twitter have announced employees can work from home “forever” if they so desire (source link). Facebook estimates that half of its organization will continue to work remotely within the next five to 10 years. In September 2020, Google announced that it intends to try a “hybrid” work-from-home program (source link). All this is to say that one of the lasting impacts of COVID-19 will be increased work flexibility for many workers, with the work location defined more by access to tools (for example, a laptop) and network connectivity than a physical space.
Look for 2021 to provide a host of innovative new ways to leverage the network and cloud-based services to provide methods to enable increased productivity and improved engagements.
#3: Accelerated Adoption of 800G to Support Bandwidth Growth
All these things will put additional pressure on connectivity networks to keep up with end-user bandwidth demands. This will drive accelerated adoption of high-speed connectivity solutions such as fifth-generation coherent 800G DWDM optical solutions. Providing a significant improvement in cost per bit and capacity per fiber, this technology will be a critical part of enabling network operators to increase the capacity of their networks cost-effectively and quickly. Additionally, this latest generation of coherent optical technology has a wide variety of transmission options and embedded intelligence enabling dynamic adjustments to provide optimal performance over virtually any existing optical environment. This will facilitate the seamless and rapid introduction of this technology to existing transport networks.
Look for 2021 to see a rapid ramp-up of fifth-gen coherent 800G technologies.
#4: Increased Adoption of Open and Disaggregated Optical Solutions
Having access to the latest technology is an imperative for most network operators to keep up with bandwidth demands and retain competitive advantages in the marketplace. However, because newer generations of high-speed optical transmission technology are increasingly more complex and the number of vendors capable of providing them is narrowing, there is a good chance that operators will not be able to procure them from their current vendors. This is causing a shift to a concept called open optical networking. Network operators leverage open optical solutions to seamlessly integrate the best-in-class elements from various suppliers into a unified network.
Open optical networking solutions separate the optical line systems and optical transponders. Optical line systems are like the highways of an optical network, with significant up-front investment and a slow pace for innovation and change. Transponders are like the cars – models and engines change and are replaced very quickly, and the next innovative new features are always right around the corner.
With open optical networks, network operators can leverage their existing optical infrastructure and choose the best available transponder with the best optical engine, from any vendor, to meet the specific needs of their application, whether it is for their metro, long-haul, or submarine network.
Look for 2021 to see more network operators embracing the concepts of open optical networking and working aggressively to introduce and operationalize newer technologies from multiple vendors.
#5: Coherent Pluggables and Optical Innovation
Coherent optical solutions in pluggable form factors are certainly nothing new to the industry. For example, 200G coherent optical solutions have been available in CFP2 form factors for many years and were extremely widely deployed. 2020 saw the introduction of a 400G version of coherent pluggables, and 2021 will see increased deployments of these solutions. The 400G pluggable solution comes in two varieties – low-performance ZR modules in QSFP-DD packages and higher-performance ZR+ modules in CFP2 packages. The good news about the ZR version is that their small form factor and lower power requirements enable them to be plugged directly into routers, eliminating the need for external transport equipment. The bad news is that their optical performance is poor and they do not support networking applications; hence, they will be limited to simple applications characterized by short distances and direct fiber point-to-point connectivity. This is a valuable solution for data center operators deploying short-reach campus-style applications. However, it won’t see much deployment in either traditional service provider networks or data center operators outside of the access and short-reach point-to-point applications.
ZR+ modules in larger CFP2 packages, on the other hand, have respectable optical performance. And while not approaching the optical performance of embedded optical solutions, such as a the aforementioned fifth-gen coherent 800G technology, they have similar performance at their headline rates as their 200G CFP2 predecessors, making them a good solution for most metro and some regional applications. However, because of the larger CFP2 package and higher power requirements, ZR+ modules will largely be deployed in transport solutions rather than plugged directly into a router.
Lookfor 2021 to be a significant year in 400G ZR+ pluggables beginning to replace the current 200G pluggables.
While ZR and ZR+ are beneficial for point-to-point metro-distributed data center interconnect, such solutions are not architecturally revolutionary and not optimized to handle the massive volumes of point-to-multipoint traffic demands in distribution networks. 2020 saw the introduction of the industry’s first point-to-multipoint coherent solution with XR optics. Unlike traditional point-to-point solutions that require the exact same size transceiver at each end of the fiber, XR optics enables a single high-speed transceiver to optically aggregate traffic from multiple lower-speed transceivers. While it may take a few years to get there, the concept has the potential to completely transform optical networks, particularly in the access and aggregation where the dominant traffic type is point-to-multipoint.
In 2021 and beyond look for increased focus on revolutionary optical solutions such as XR optics as network operators look for increasingly innovative solutions, particularly in the access and aggregation parts of their networks, to help address the impending avalanche of traffic from newer consumer services such as 5G and high-speed broadband.
As we head into 2021, these are the top industry predictions I see for optical and transport networking. While hopefully not as “interesting” as 2020, I expect 2021 to be an eventful year.
