An announcement all about the core, but it's not all about the core
I don’t follow the core router market, but it’s pretty clear that 322 Tb/s is a whole lot of capacity. And I’m of the belief that too much is a lot better than not enough, and that traffic loads across the board only increase over time. It would seem, then, that a product like Cisco’s brand-new CRS-3 is already much too small, remarkable technological achievement though it obviously is.
But apart from the “future of the Internet” hype that always accompanies the announcement of products in this class, it’s a little hard to see how this product alone will have much impact on wireless. And the reason for this is the requirement that we also consider the remainder of the product and service value chain that links handsets in the field with whatever the users of those handsets seek to connect to. Considering just the variable nature of the physical layer of wireless connections, limited base station capacity, and limited backhaul capacity, it’s not hard to be reminded of the old saying regarding chains being only as good as their weakest link. And, of course, the same goes for networks. How long will it take for the wireless operators to build out the rest of their networks to match this new capacity at the core, and for enough of this capacity to exist in enough markets so that business users can rely this availability – what I call critical mass? Don’t hold your breath. Progress is being made, but, as has historically been the case, it will be slow.
So, sure, while the CRS-3 might indeed provide enough core capacity for “every man, woman and child in China to make a video call, simultaneously,” those users won’t be doing that over a wireless network anytime soon.
