Lowering the cost to transport mobile Internet traffic

Mobile Internet traffic is growing like crazy. We all know it. In fact it was the topic of the first slide in every presentation at an optical conference I recently attended.

Let's move beyond the statistics and talk about what service providers can do to change the way they transport all that traffic and actually lower the cost per bit in the process.

Packet optical transport (POTs) is the answer.

Networks must scale to meet customer demand for reliable, efficient services. But, network planning is always forecast-driven. The only guaranteed thing about forecasts is that they are always wrong.

Plus, even with the migration to 2G/3G/LTE underway, SONET/SDH is not going away anytime soon. Service providers need to get the most out of the networks they have while building for the future.

Packet optical products enable large and small service providers to offer higher capacity at a lower cost per bit while supporting SONET/SDH and Ethernet transport.

As networks evolve to Ethernet, adding POTs platforms can initially provide scale to existing infrastructure assets. Equally important is the ability to aggregate Ethernet services from the edge of the network to a single aggregated 1GbE to 10GbE. Existing SONET/SDH can be leveraged to support new services while taking advantage of the switching and performance monitoring capabilities of POTs.

POTs solutions also support an intelligent optical layer. It enables the deployment of all-packet solutions with better scalability than traditional TDM networks. And, as Ethernet technologies advance and MPLS-TP standards evolve, service providers gain the advantages of connection-oriented Ethernet for better timing, management and performance monitoring.

Finally, the POTs strong optical layer manages services at the wavelength level, keeping cost per bit transported at its lowest. And by integrating wavelength level switching with aggregation of layer 2 interfaces, service providers can greatly reduce the number of electronics and router ports in the network. The result: significant CapEx savings, even in small networks.

The growing popularity of the mobile Internet is a game changer. Service providers can no longer build networks following strategies used in the past. By changing network architectures to take advantage of POTs, you'll have the flexibility to migrate to Ethernet when the time is right, while reducing cost per bit to its lowest possible level.