RE: Subject: Survey of lengths of installed optical fiber cable
I disagree.
When designing a proprietary interface, one has the flexibility to
"right-size" the link. That is to say that you can match the data rate,
feature set, etc. to the particular ideosyncracies of the system. I think
that it is unlikely that, in a world of terabit class routers, board to
board interconnects will be limited to 10GB/s. Hence, we are really talking
about sizing in two dimensions. Links can be designed using many of the
same components used in more generic intersystem links. This allows a
designer to optimize price/performance to a particular system. A good
example of this sort of interface might be the purely logic to logic links
implemented using 1x12 VCSEL arrays; no XAUI, no line coding, no frills.
To think that all of the bells and whistles we are talking about adding to
10GBE to insure interoperability, generality of application, etc., come at
a price which can be canceled out by economies of scale when compared to
lean and mean, purpose built links based on many of the same components, is
naieve and unjustified.
Jay