| Maximizing the Impact of Optical Technology (603KB)
Abstract: The optical transport network is evolving based on the requirement to support higher bandwidth for business and residential services while reducing costs. Optical technology has matured to make an end-to-end all optical network both practical and economical. This network architecture will provide the flexibility to incrementally expand based on customer demand by providing key features such as integrated packet processing, mesh topology and restoration, optical broadcast, and an optical control plane. Multi-wavelength optical communication backbone networks and systems have evolved to support a dynamic mesh network with reduced regeneration requirements and improved reach characteristics while maintaining a high level of integration to keep cost and complexity manageable. Optical access technology (i.e., fiber to the premises) has proven a viable multi-service delivery vehicle. Component technology -- in particular wavelength switching -- has reached a level of maturity where it can be applied to support mesh topologies in DWDM systems -- both metropolitan and long-haul. The integration and price points of these switches and other optical components (such as amplifiers, filters and lasers) now allow a dynamic and flexible wavelength network to be extended much closer to the customer. Application of Raman amplification, electronic dispersion compensation, and advanced modulation techniques will also improve system reach and capacity.
Biography: Mark Wegleitner is Senior Vice President – Technology and Network Planning, and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for Verizon Communications. His responsibilities include technology assessment, network architecture, platform development and laboratory testing for the local and long distance wireline communications businesses, as well as network planning for local wireline communications. In his current role, he and his organization support all business units in the management of technology and network matters.
Prior to his current assignment, Wegleitner served as Vice President, Technology & Engineering at Bell Atlantic Network Services, where he was responsible for all technology and engineering functions. And prior to that, he was CTO at Bell Atlantic Network Services.
Since joining Bell Atlantic, he has also held a variety of other management positions in strategic planning, network architecture, technology development, information systems, research and development, broadband implementation and new services technology.
Wegleitner began his career with Bell Telephone Laboratories in local switching systems development. He later joined the exchange switching systems design organization at AT&T General Departments, where he had responsibility for the introduction of new features and services on local switching systems. He held another brief assignment with Bell Laboratories in local switching systems engineering before transferring to Bell Atlantic.
Wegleitner received a B.A. in mathematics from St. John's University, and an M.S. in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of California at Berkeley. |
Optical Fiber Communications in Mainland China: Activities and Visions of Carriers, Equipment Vendors and Academia (2MB)
Abstract: Since 2004, the optical fiber communication industry has been under rational development in mainland China after the “telecom winter.” As of June 2006, China has established the largest telephone network with 365.3 million (32% rural) fixed and 426.4 million mobile phone subscribers, while mobile communication occupies the biggest part (43.5%) of the total revenue. The capex/revenue ratio of the carriers is still as high as 35% in 2005, which is good news for system vendors. On the Internet side, the number of users reaches 123 million (penetration 9.4%; room for expansion), with 63% broadband (xDSL or cable modem) related. It is interesting to note that while the number of Internet users increased almost linearly during the past three years (20 million/year), the total international bandwidth of the Internet (214.7Gb/s in June 2006) increased exponentially during the same period of time (approx. 2 times/year). Internet users are bandwidth-hungry all the time. Accordingly, DWDM LH systems and large scale metro networks, less to say broadband access networks, are all under serious concern of carriers and equipment vendors. In fact, how to survive and generate more revenue and profit through improved and novel services becomes a serious challenge to service providers, especially traditional telcos. Visions and roadmaps of major carriers will be discussed. As for system vendors, achievements and strategies of leading companies will be introduced and analyzed. Finally, typical industrial and academic R&D projects with different targets and supported by various national programs, research institutes and universities will be briefly described.
Biography: CC Fan graduated from the Department of Radio Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China in 1958. He then joined the faculty there and was engaged in teaching and research activities in the field of microwave electronics. Since 1979, he switched to guided-wave optics and photonics, and is now a retired professor of the Electronic Engineering Department of Tsinghua University. His research interests include fiber transmission systems, optical amplifiers, optical nonlinearities, fiber Bragg gratings and photonic bandgap structures, etc. He was the principal investigator of numerous projects sponsored by the National Science Foundation of China, the State Commission of Science and Technology, and the Ministry of Information Industry, and authored/co-authored more than 100 journal and conference papers and a graduate-level textbook titled Guided-Wave Optics. He is a fellow of the Optical Society of America and serves as the vice director of the Professional Group of Optical Communication of the Chinese Institute of Communications. |
Networks without Operators (3MB)
Abstract: Being digital is to be porous and blurring, turning previously crisp distinctions into more ambiguous and concurrent occasions. For example, home and work, consumption and creation, management and labor, teacher and student are no longer flip sides of a coin, but a single condition that can change state from one moment to the next. Telecommunciations is no different. The Internet itself is living proof that man-made systems can emerge bottoms-up, more like the natural phenomena. What used to be a walled garden of voice service, that one either used or operated, is now morphing into a more peer-to-peer, data-centric structure. A “flower box” theory of telecommunications will be presented, including the specific example of the $100 laptop being developed by the One Laptop per Child non-profit association.
Biography: Nicholas Negroponte is founder and chairman of the One Laptop per Child non-profit association. He is currently on leave from MIT, where he was co-founder and director of the MIT Media Laboratory, and the Jerome B. Wiesner Professor of Media Technology. A graduate of MIT, Nicholas was a pioneer in the field of computer-aided design, and has been a member of the MIT faculty since 1966. Conceived in 1980, the Media Laboratory opened its doors in 1985. He is also author of the 1995 best seller, Being Digital, which has been translated into more than 40 languages. In the private sector, Nicholas serves on the board of directors for Motorola, Inc. and as general partner in a venture capital firm specializing in digital technologies for information and entertainment. He has provided start-up funds for more than 40 companies, including Wired magazine. |