* Need for higher-speed Ethernet growing - in some circles
I received an e-mail message recently from someone who is looking forward to the development of the next generation of Ethernet.
He replied to my May newsletter on the topic of 100 Gigabit Ethernet. He pointed out that there was a quick presentation at the February NANOG conference in Dallas on this issue, and provided a helpful link to the PDF.
The reader writes:
“The person who gave the talk was pointing out that at major Internet exchange points (more commonly found outside U.S.) the bit rates on the pipes are *already* exceeding 10Gbps(!)… Along with the usual rapid growth of all data communications, massive amounts of video (YouTube.com, et. al.) are also pushing bit rates higher than ever before.”
He argues that in these environments, there is a need for 100 Gigabit Ethernet today.
But he goes on to say that what’s interesting this time around for Ethernet is that it may be more challenging to do 100 Gigabit than previous speeds:
“I think that another interesting aspect of this story is that there is nothing on the radar and therefore no 100 GigE under development. Typically Ethernet has adopted existing PHY gear (FDDI, Fibre Channel, SONET, etc.) and turned it into Ethernet.
“However, 100 Gigabits is hard. Work in the labs has resulted in 100Gbps signaling over fiber only within recent months… Given that there’s no 100 Gigabit gear in production as yet, then that would seem to indicate that there’s nothing for Ethernet engineers to leverage.
“With nothing to leverage, development time could be much longer. And that, in turn, means that people who are currently pushing the limits of 10Gbps and who have a fairly near-term need for 100Gbps may have a longer wait than they’re expecting since Ethernet has been jumping in 10x increments every three or so years for a while now.”
There is a Higher Speed Ethernet Call for Interest scheduled for an IEEE meeting next week, where the case for 100Gbps Ethernet will be presented. I’ll let you know if anything comes of it.
