DWDM comes in many flavors, and I doubt it makes much sense to hand another carrier a fiber with a lot of different lambdas on it (if that is what you were asking). There are way too many variables. OTOH, if you were simply refering to buying the use of one "wave" (or "lambda") that is a normal product for many companys. Unlike dark fiber, they have lit the route and are just selling you a lambda off their big DWDM system. They may choose to price it differently if you are running OC192 on it than if you are running OC48, bit in any case the Sonet ADM gear is up to you. Your connection is very apt to be a short range 1310 into them and their DWDM gear then will convert it to an ITU grid color up in the 1550 range and will coordinate signal levels, etc to eliminate crosstalk with adjacent channels. All you can mess up is your traffic. Lambda sales will become even more popular at major optical switching centers as realtime open markets evolve. Finisar is finally about to ship GBIC shaped pluggable optical devices in ITU grid colors. They will have actually, I think, two speed ranges, one for OC3 and OC12 and the other one for GIG-E and OC48. The exact application depends on the card you plug this generic device into. First big batch samples this month, and full production maybe April. The SFP (Small Formfactor Pluggable) units won't be getting ITU grid colors for over a year later. Finisar has been armtwisted into protecting the largest router arrogance, especially in the 80km GBIC product space. In the more plebian range down at the 10 km 1310 units or the local MultiMode units you will find more price competition and should pay respectively less than $200 and $100 even in small quantities. Molex doesn't make 80km units but does make the rest, and cisco as well as everyone else buys from both. Don't ever say whose equipment you are go to use a GBIC with, because they then may not sell it to you! The DOJ has to fit in here somewhere. On a metro area scale, I bet someone might sell you a lambda on a passive DWDM network to some building where your service didn't compete with theirs, and where you were using the same power same brand pluggable "GBIC" like devices and where there was no chance for your messing up their adjacent channels with too hot a signal. These pluggable devices will open up many options. But the long haul intelligent DWDM systems are juggling way too many variables and should be under one company's management. There is too much at risk and too easy to screw up. Of course two carriers can and will do whatever they want between themselves. We were the first carrier to drag an RBOC into an interoperability test with our cisco/cerent 15454s and their whatever. Cisco had not been certified til then to interconnect to any RBOC and was very eager. VZ, well, they did it because the letter from their legal dept said to. They used the Fugitsu FLMs in various sizes to test against just one Cerent using its wide range of cards. Now VZ is using Cerents themselves. After the grief we went through to get simple RBOC OC3, OC12, and OC48 interconnections blessed, I would hate to try adding DWDM to the mix. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Pete Kruckenberg" <pete@kruckenberg.com> To: <nanog@merit.edu> Sent: Monday, January 06, 2003 6:04 PM Subject: DWDM interconnects
How common are DWDM interconnects between networks (carriers)?
Is DWDM considered a reliable/scalable/operable carrier interconnection technology?
Is multi-vendor DWDM (whether internal to the network or for carrier interconnection) practical or sensible, especially for carrier/network interconnection? Many vendors proclaim interoperability, but does that work in the real world?
Pete.