My point was that the technology has little to do with the operational success of the service. Spectrum controllers better enabling providers to get out of their own way in selling spectrum did not actually enable the providers* to get out of their own way in selling spectrum. It *should* be easier than it used to be, but it isn't, and the problem is not really technical, but a question of 1) not having full-throated commitment to wanting to sell spectrum and 2) not having the talent to support it, which is really just a function of #1. *Speaking specifically about the very largest CLEC wavelength providers in North America On Sun, May 12, 2024 at 6:34 PM Mark Tinka <mark@tinka.africa> wrote:
On 5/13/24 00:11, Dave Cohen wrote:
Mark,
Many/all of these points are fair. My experience is purely terrestrial and obviously both the capacity and economic calculations are vastly different in those situations, which I should have called out.
Actually, terrestrial economics are easier to consider because you have the one thing the subsea applications don't have in abundance... power.
Fair point, terrestrial revenues are significantly lower than subsea revenues on a per-bit basis, but so are the deployment costs. That evens out, somewhat.
However, I don’t think that the optical vendor is really the challenge - I would agree that, generally, spectrum is going to be available through larger providers that are using “traditional carrier grade” platforms - but rather at the service provider level. When something invariably breaks at 3 AM and the third shift Tier I NOC tech who hasn’t read the service playbook says “I don’t see any errors on your transponder, sorry, it’s not on our end” because they’re not aware that they actually don’t have access to the transponder and need to start looking elsewhere, that’s the sort of thing that creates systemic challenges for users regardless of whether the light is being shot across a Ciena 6500 or a Dave’s Box-o’-Lasers 1000.
I think you are contradicting yourself a bit, unless I misunderstand your point.
Legacy vendors who have spectrum controllers have made this concern less of an issue. But then again, to be fair, adopting spectrum controllers along with bandwidth expansions via things like gridless line systems and C+L backbone architectures that make spectrum sales a lot more viable at scale do come at a hefty $$ premium. So I can understand that offering spectrum independent of spectrum controllers is going to be more trouble than it is worth.
Ultimately, what I'm saying is that technologically, this is now a solved problem, for the most part. That said, I don't think it will be the majority of DWDM operators offering spectrum services en masse, for at least a few more years. So even if you want to procure managed spectrum or spectrum sharing, you are likely to come up against a limited set of providers willing to sell it, if at all.
Mark.
-- - Dave Cohen craetdave@gmail.com
On 5/13/24 04:07, Dave Cohen wrote:
My point was that the technology has little to do with the operational success of the service. Spectrum controllers better enabling providers to get out of their own way in selling spectrum did not actually enable the providers* to get out of their own way in selling spectrum. It *should* be easier than it used to be, but it isn't, and the problem is not really technical, but a question of 1) not having full-throated commitment to wanting to sell spectrum and 2) not having the talent to support it, which is really just a function of #1.
Fundamentally, I agree. This is one area where terrestrial operators will be late bloomers, as subsea shows and leads the way. My prediction is that there will be a slightly improved chance of spectrum services gaining a little more traction (not a lot) on the terrestrial side when the new-age DWDM vendors are able to offer more competitive and standards-based spectrum controllers. The other avenue of interest will be in mitigating the costs associated with upgrading to C+L network topologies, where some spectrum comes up for grabs as a quick way to recover the investment. And lastly, content folk looking to enter markets on the back of existing operators where the appetite for negotiating dark fibre is relatively low, will apply pressure on those reluctant operators to offer up some spectrum. We have already seen, across the world, how "convincing" the content folk have been at this sort of thing. But for the most part, yes, I expect the bulk of DWDM services sold to terrestrial network users will continue to be electrical bandwidth, and not optical spectrum, at least for the next few years. I could potentially see a case for a specialist DWDM operator who focuses on a spectrum-based service network that sells to 3 - 5 high-capacity customers, but those will be very specialist. Mark.
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Mark Tinka