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Networks & Infrastructure
C5: Metro ROADM Blocks In Europe
Market Lags North America By 12-24 Months, Says Analyst
by Ken Wieland
Don’t believe even moderate numbers to describe the size of the metro ROADM market in Europe because it is virtually non-existent.
That was the message from Dave Dunphy, an independent telecom consultant, speaking at the C5 World Forum.
“I read a figure recently of US$80 Million for 2006, which is just plain wrong,” he says. “Numbers have been distorted due to one vendor counting WDM equipment as ROADM in order to hype up the market.”
Dunphy wouldn’t be drawn on naming the culprit but, he adds, there is hope for ROADM vendors targeting Europe.
“In the last six months operators have begun to talk seriously about deployment in their metro networks,” he says. “It probably means that Europe lags behind North America between one to two years.”
ROADMs, or reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers, allow operators to reduce the level of manual intervention and cost of provisioning wavelength services.
The problem for vendors, particularly when pitching ROADM for metro deployment, is that they haven’t been able to convince operators that the opex savings justify the capex outlay.
But that is beginning to change, says Dunphy, as demand for capacity in the network increases and traffic patterns become more unpredictable (which increases network management opex). “Operators are now getting a lot more focused on opex,” says Dunphy.
For ROADM in the long haul, the argument for deployment is far more clear-cut. Due to the greater distances between sites, manual reconfiguration of the network to provision wavelength services is necessarily more expensive and takes much longer to do.
“By implementing a ROADM, we have managed to cut our opex cost by €2.5 billion (US$3.3 Billion) per year,” says Patrick George, director for Belgacom International Carrier Services (BICS). “We managed to get an ROI on our ROADM investment within six months.”
Using kit from Siemens, BICS’ ROADM network went live in September 2006. A wholesale “carriers’ carrier”, BICS is so far the only pan-European ROADM rollout of its kind.
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