Market potential of equalization at 10G
Dear colleagues,
I have a very important assignment for you! Please attempt to answer these
questions yourself, or forward it to someone whose judgment in marketing matters
you trust.
The goal of this exercise is to find out if the equalization solution has "broad
market potential" at 10G. (If the answer is yes, we should plan the details of
doing a Call for Interest.)
There are five scenarios in which one can argue that equalization provides a
tangible benefit. My questions to you for each scenario are: Who will buy this
solution and why? And how big is the potential market? The embodiment of a
"solution" would be a suitable transceiver with an equalizer IC built in.
1. For singlemode links (standard fiber, not dispersion shifted), equalization
can help extend the distance from ~70 km to ~140 km. Upto ~70 km, the link
distance can be extended without equalization. Use of optical amplifiers and
externally modulated lasers is assumed.
2. Equalization can provide a viable alternative to optical compensation schemes
that use special fiber or grating devices to compensate chromatic dispersion.
Electrical equalization can be argued to be a better choice because it will be
cheaper and adaptive (you don't have to engineer it for a known length of
fiber.)
3. Equalization can overcome severe cases of Polarization Mode Dispersion (PMD)
in metro links. It is suspected that some portion of fiber in metro routes is
dated pre-1992, having potentially high values of PMD.
4. Equalization can allow the laser to be directly modulated, even for a 40 km
1550 nm link. Pulse broadening resulting from chirp can be equalized. The
assumption here is that the equalization IC will cost less than external
modulation of laser would.
5. In the case of installed MMF, equalization can achieve 300 meters at 1310 nm
on 500 MHz-Km fiber, and ~100 meters at 850 nm on 160 MHz-Km fiber. The new work
by TIA FO 2.2 can be adopted for 850 nm links, so the fiber can be assumed to
have 385 MHz-Km bandwidth. In such a case, more than 200 meters may be feasible.
With those assumptions, the key issue to nail down here is the size of the
installed MMF market. If, a year from now, such solutions were to be available,
will information managers still want to use installed MMF? Or will it be too
late because they would have already pulled new multimode or singlemode fiber?
Thanks,
Vipul
vbhatt@xxxxxxxxxxx
408-542-4113