Next Generation Optical Transport?

Currently, optical transport (both SONET and SDH) technology used in service providers have reached its maturity and seems have stagnated. There is really no new features implemented on this technology. Most technology vendors have implemented features such as BLSR, UPSR, Bridge-and-roll, Ethernet over SONET (using GFP), even DWDM.

But, if we see the distribution of bandwidth used by customers, seems there is still a lot of 'dark' fiber, in other words, much of the bandwidths are left unused. Are these slots are really unused? If we see, in United States itself, High Definition TVs have not reached a point that many people expect. What about the Internet? well, eventhough most of the service providers (telephone, Internet or TV cable) give broadband accesses, the numbers are not satisfactory.

Now it is coming Packet-Over-ADM using optical connection. Many people are expecting this will be the next generation optical transport. Even some vendors have already had thse PADM-enabled equipments.

Technology-wise it is next generation optical transport, but what about business-wise? Well, let see what is going to happen in near future.