what's next ?
Hello 10Giga'ers,
The results of the vote held in La Jolla led to the ridiculous result
that an
802.3 Task Force has passed the MAN- and WAN-oriented proposals
and voted down all the LAN-oriented proposals. It is clear that the Task
Force failed to reach its objectives. However, this failure could be
also a
great opportunity for everyone.
Perhaps the right thing to do is to go for an amicable divorce and
propose
two new PARs and go for two separate Task Forces.
One TF will have MAN- and WAN-oriented objectives using single-mode
fiber and 1,300 and 1,550 nm lasers. These are the two proposals that
were
approved in La Jolla. Being freed from the "burden" of the multiplicity
of
LAN-oriented proposals (as some of its proponents declared) this TF
could
proceed unimpeded to reach all its desired objectives.
The other TF will be LAN-oriented and will also proceed very rapidly to
standardize the following 10.00000 Gbps proposals:
1) 8b/10b coding using 4-WDM and 850 nm lasers on multimode fiber,
with 3.125 Gbaud symbol rate in the fiber;
2) 8b/10b coding using 4-WDM and 1,300 nm lasers on multimode and
single-mode fiber, with 3.125 Gbaud symbol rate in the fiber; and
3) 8b/10b coding serially with 12.5 Gbaud symbol rate in the fiber.
The 4-months delay due to the need to get an approved PAR will not
impact
the final target schedule of the original 802.3ae. On the contrary, one
would
expect - at least for the LAN-oriented Task Force - to have a first
written
draft and the first complete multivendor working prototypes by the end
of
this year (at least for the 4-WDM versions). This will make the approval
of
the LAN-PAR unstopable. And with working prototypes so early one would
expect the final LAN-oriented Standard to be very robust and overwhelmly
adopted by the market.
Moving the serial LAN to 12.5 Gbaud is a risky proposition from my
part. However, if the delay/price penalty is reasonable it would be
worthy
since then all the 10 Gbps LAN PHYs will have the same PCS, that will
also
be shared by Fiber Channel and the majority of the high-speed Copper
backplane solutions.
These three LAN-oriented proposals will provide the most cost effective
solutions for all the possible LAN environments, including both the
in-building
links and the longer campus links
Jaime E. Kardontchik
Micro Linear
San Jose, CA 95131