Scott Helms wrote:
Here is the architecture document: http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/research...
The document, seemingly, does not address drop cable cost difference. It does not address L1 unbundling with WDM-PON, which requires fiber patch panel identical to that required for SS, either. As for power consumption at CO, all the transmitters do not have to have power consuming LDs but can just have modulators to modulate light from a shared light source, which has already happened with QSFP+: http://www.luxtera.com/faqs/ How do you generate light in silicon? Actually, we don't. Silicon is a bad material to try and build lasers in. Some silicon lasers have been demonstrated, but these are completely impractical. As it turns out there's no need to build a silicon laser: lasers are already very inexpensive (remember, there's already one in every PC - inside the CD/DVD player). The challenge has been finding an inexpensive way to attach the lasers to silicon. Solving this problem, and the related one of inexpensively attaching optical fibers to silicon, is a key piece of Luxtera's intellectual property. We think of a laser as being just like a DC power supply – only it provides a steady stream of photons rather than electrons. Masataka Ohta