Nortel widens telecom tubes with 40Gb/s optical cards

Nortel is showing off some new optical networking gear for telecoms, made to push bandwidth-clogging applications at a blazing 40Gb/s without an infrastructure overhaul. The Toronto-based vendor has fired up trials for its 40G (and eventually 100G) Adaptive Optical Engine cards that slot into the massive OME (Optical …

[mvrx]

40G and 100G, not just for the telecom kids.

What's interesting here is in relatively short order, desktop motherboards will include 10GbE interfaces and server motherboards will probably have 40GbE.

Intel's Eaglelake chipset due out late this year will have 10GbE. I'm not sure if that is copper or optical, or both. 10GbE included in a stock system basically turns it into a very attractive box for adding to a cluster. Intel released a document showing what looked to be an arguement to somewhat skip 10GbE interfaces as this generations preferred jump, to go to 40GbE ASAP. The same paper said that 100GbE won't be affordable for the mainstream until 2015 or 2020.

That being said, I'd like to forward on the rumor of eventual low cost, off the shelf, mass-produced 32nm 100GbE interfaces in 2010-2010 via IBM's 32nm partnership program. IBM wants a low cost way to interconnect those massive arrays of POWER7 based systems. (just a prediction....)

... and rumor #2, 40GbE Sony PlayStation4 PS4 interconnects. 10GbE will probably suffice, but 40GbE will give it the extra kick for those 100,000 node clusters that the government needs to build SkyNet. At these speeds, PS4 clusters will behave like a big nasty IBM mainframe.

.. another prediction, by 2013 - real time high-def audio/video data is migrated from the HDCP ruined HDMI standard to 10GbE/40GbE home networks. Streamed with H.264 AVCHD, and made universal. Any display device anywhere can display AV from any other device anywhere in the home. PC's begin to virtualize their AV content into IP streams served by Teradici's PC-Over-IP technology. DisplayPort and HDMI begin to go the way of composite cables. :) (ok this one is just a big wish).

[Troy Shanahan]

Not just star wars kid....

... Numa Numa must also bear the blame.

[Glen Turner]

@mvrx

mvrx scribbled: What's interesting here is in relatively short order, desktop motherboards will include 10GbE interfaces and server motherboards will probably have 40GbE.

Host interfaces have always been easier to design than long-haul interfaces. It's the difference between 100m and 50,000m.

(Paris, because she's easy from any distance)

[Greg]

@Numa Numa

AARRGGHH!! The only thing I hate more than the video is when people call it "Numa Numa!" A bunch of stupid, retarded American teenagers called it that because that's the closest they could get to understanding a foreign language. They probably thought he was speaking in tongues or something. But this side of the pond we should know better. It's called "Dragostea Din Tei," it's by Ozone, and it's a rubbish, but the video is a laugh.

Interestingly enough for fans of Internet memes, the words "nu ma" from Romanian appear, as far as I can tell, to translate to "don't want." Or "DO NOT WANT," if you prefer.

[John Miles]

Hard part is 100mtr -> 1000 km at 10 and 40Gb.

Going 100m is easy, 50km at 10G has been around for a long time.

The really hard part is getting 10Gb and 40Gb to go further than ~100km.

10Gb pulses of light start to merge together after 100-200km because of dispersion (some components of the pulse travel faster than others).

Up till now you had to put in expensive optical delay compensation filters to correct the dispersion.

At 40Gb the problems get 4 times worse - i.e. the light gets mushed after 25-50km, or you had to go through power hogging electro-0ptics every so often (very un-green).

The Nortel approach cleverly gets round this using techniques similar to those formerly applied to radios and modems - (i.e. Quadrature transmission, dual polarization and line compensation), except scaled up many times to operate at Optical line rates.

[Bronek Kozicki]

@mvrx

Yeah, put some buzzwords together, call it "prediction" and surely facts will follow :-P

[John Macintyre]

but the most important question....

will I get my pron quicker?

mines the one with hustler in the pocket...

[Will]

@ John Miles

Yes it is an issue hence on optical networks you will find ILA (In line amplifiers) and ILR (In line regenerators) every 70kms or so. These are swapped dependant on the overall distance covered between the main bits of kit at either end.

The ILA's just bump up the signal and the ILR's reshape the signal from a more wavy curve to be a more square binary light pulse.

Interestingly the speeds keep increasing for the end cards year on year however the ILA's and ILR's keep handling the increased speed as they are relatively non-complicated bits of kit. Remember that those lovely fibres across the pond also need these things, so you will find them under the sea every 70ks or so and they have been doing this for quite a few years.

[Dennis]

OME6500> Massive.

No it's not. it's a medium size, very flexible piece of kit, however if you want massive, then the HDX is where it's at. Huge multi terrabit optical x-connect, ASTN capable etc with something daft like 32 10 gig ports pre shelf, over 2 shelves...

The 6500 wins out though as it (should) support PBT...

[Anonymous Coward]

mjaaah

Added to that comes the issue of power consumption by high speed electronics, and while 10G is relatively cheap in that respect, 40G not so yet. And that is still one of the issues that telcos are currently battling......

[Anonymous Coward]

@John Miles

"At 40Gb the problems get 4 times worse - i.e. the light gets mushed after 25-50km, or you had to go through power hogging electro-0ptics every so often (very un-green)."

Actually, it gets 16 times worse. The effect is proportional to the bit rate squared :( So your signals get "mushy" after a few km until dispersion compensation is used.

[mvrx]

@Glen Turner

Well, I did only say "What's Interesting".. I didn't say people would be plugging their desktop 40GbE NIC into a 45 mile fiber line they ran out to their gaming buddies house. ;-)

However, I guess it is possible for a really brightly lit enterprise adaptor to span more than the minimum 100 meters (330 feet) and the 10 kilometers (6 miles) second level minimum.

[Daniel B.]

@Greg

At least they call it "Numa Numa" ... over here (Mexico) it was known as "maiahiiii", or its even more popular version: "Marica tu" (you gay) from the "Pluma gay" sketch some Spanish comedy program made. Though the song did hit the top-10, so we did learn rather quickly the song's called "Dragostea din tei" from O-Zone. ;)

As for high-speed fiber ... isn't there a crapload of "dark fiber" that could theoretically be lit up? Its about time we start putting into use those dot-com burst leftovers...