Josh, thank you, your remarks (and those of Matt and Eduard) are helping me to understand better.

For some context, please look at this graphic that shows the results of the question
"Which of the following best describes your current dominant form of metro-aggregation?"
The left bar chart shows *NOG reponses; 
the right bar chart shows responses obtained through market research among Tier 1 and regional operators.

Operator group respondents overwhelmingly selected "routed optical networks over Ethernet without ROADMs".
Now, during an interview I held to assess the answers, 
the interviewee (an experienced network engineer) questioned the meaning.

I realized that I may have been conditioned by Cisco marketing (I attend a few webinars), and 
I wanted to understand what respondents understood.

Summarizing an answer to your observation, I was conditioned by Cisco marketing.

Cheers,

Etienne

On Mon, May 1, 2023 at 10:30 PM Josh Luthman <josh@imaginenetworksllc.com> wrote:
Maybe some clarification as to what you're asking for would help.  You're mixing fiber, networks, and a MAN.  Fiber is just the medium.  It could be for IP switching or projecting a light show.  Are you asking if there are diverse paths throughout a metro area?

On Mon, May 1, 2023 at 2:30 PM Etienne-Victor Depasquale via NANOG <nanog@nanog.org> wrote:
Hello folks,

Simple question: does "routed optical networks" have a clear meaning in the metro area context, or not?

Put differently: does it call to mind a well-defined stack of technologies in the control and data planes of metro-area networks?

I'm asking because I'm having some thoughts about the clarity of this term, in the process of carrying out a qualitative survey of the results of the metro-area networks survey.

Cheers,

Etienne

--
Ing. Etienne-Victor Depasquale
Assistant Lecturer
Department of Communications & Computer Engineering
Faculty of Information & Communication Technology
University of Malta


--
Ing. Etienne-Victor Depasquale
Assistant Lecturer
Department of Communications & Computer Engineering
Faculty of Information & Communication Technology
University of Malta
Web. https://www.um.edu.mt/profile/etiennedepasquale