It’s crunch-time for network operators: They’re juggling the deployment of 5G, the exploration of open and disaggregated networks, and an intense, global focus on the deployment of broadband services, with 6G already on the horizon. What is top of mind as they’re thinking about the implications for their networks, both now and in the long term?
According to Stephen Alexander, CTO of Ciena, network topics of conversation with operators right now generally fall into two buckets: The focus on broadband and service expansion at the network edge, and the role of cloud in the network.
While the company is keeping abreast of and participating in future 6G development through groups like ATIS, Alexander notes that 6G isn’t yet a factor in network investment plans per se, as the technology is still in early development. Most actual network investment right now, he said, is happening at the edge of the network and related to broadband service expansion.
“The edge of the network is very, very big, very complicated,” Alexander said, warning that the kind of deployment scales that are envisioned are “not going to happen overnight.” But the amount of federal funding in play and the fact that this is a service-provider-led opportunity means a high level of interest, as well as strategic thinking about how that infrastructure build-out should be done to serve not just immediate connectivity needs, but for long-term capacity and capability.
Because even if 6G is still largely an academic and policy exercise, Alexander says that operators are indeed thinking further ahead than their needs for the coming three to five years in some arenas. There was a time at which it was normal for the industry to base network capacity planning needs on population growth; the scale and speed of growth in data consumption spurred by smartphones has been unprecedented, though, and has made network operators more willing to look beyond typical network planning trajectories and consider the possibility that capacity needs may not just double or triple, but go to 10x or 100x. Alexander says: “They’ll at least do those kind of thought experiments — ‘Does that mean a completely different architecture, or does it mean more of what I’ve got? What are the implications for me and my infrastructure?’ … ‘What do I need in terms of number of fibers, where do I have to put amplifiers and splitters?’
“There are some architectural choices that they can make now, and what they really want to see is the network being able to keep up and adapt to whatever gets thrown at it,” he continued. “What they want to see is more flexibility, programmability; the ability to get what they need in place today but not have to completely rip it out and replace it every five years to keep up.”
Ciena encourages what Alexander describes as “universal access model” in which an operator pulls a “reasonable amount of high capacity to the edge,” which he considers 100G or 400G today. That amount of capacity enables the ability to serve anything from passive optical networks to commercial Ethernet services for enterprises, to cell site backhaul and other such services.
“I hate to use the term ‘future-proof’ because you’re always wondering what’s really out there,” Alexander says. “But it gives them so much more flexibility, and a belief that the network is going to adapt and keep up with whatever they can see coming.”
Ciena recently announced several new customer projects: Mila, Iceland’s largest telecom infrastructure company, worked with the company to upgrade its bandwidth capacity and 5G capabilities to address “surging country-wide and international network traffic.” Australia’s Telstra Wholesale also tapped Ciena for 400G wavelength service upgrades on routes between Adelaide, Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane, with additional 400G routes coming next year. Steve Long, Telstra Wholesale’s executive, said that the expansion of 400G service is part of Telstra Wholesale’s strategy of offering a range of solutions that can be tailored to different demands.
Gary Smith, Ciena’s CEO, pointed out on the company’s most recent quarterly call that as Ciena seeks to expand its total addressable market, it has specifically looked at its ability to support next-gen metro and edge applications—and bought several companies specifically for those reasons. “The acquisitions of Vyatta, Tibit and Benu are driving new customer conversations and engagements about the opportunities in virtual routing and broadband access, including PON,” Smith said.
Alexander says that the other network aspect that is top of mind is the role of cloud: What operators do with it, how they interact with it and what the long-term business relationship looks like. “I think the service providers probably look at the cloud operators and think they’re more of a competitor than the reverse,” Alexander offers. “I don’t think the cloud operators look at service providers and say, ‘Okay, there’s my competition.'”
But, he adds: “What the carrier still has is proximity to the customers.” End-user devices need a “mean time to cloud” that falls between 5-15 milliseconds for truly immersive experiences, particularly in an AR/VR or some AI/ML contexts. Some of that time is spent in the air interface, the transport, in security processes and in cloud processing. When you work through the physics involved, he explains, the first computing instance needs to be within 75-150 kilometers; and ultimately network operators are the ones who have the capability and infrastructure to support that first computing instance.
But he says it’s an open question as to the extent to which operators can monetize that. “They’ve got this proximity to basically monetize if they choose to,” Alexander says. “Can they monetize all that traffic? That, to me, is the opportunity to for them. That’s their infrastructure taking everything to and from the cloud.”
