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Challenge Long-distance networks have been all-optical for years. But the older generation of optical equipment doesn't have enough capacity to keep up with the tidal wave of information swamping the Net.
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Challenge In the '80s, phone companies built a set of optical rings to carry voice traffic around groups of cities. But the rings don't have enough capacity to carry all the Net traffic now flooding into them.
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Challenge The biggest bottleneck in the phone network is within cities. The vast amount of data zipping between neighborhoods is clogging the electrical switches designed to direct voice calls to their destination.
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Challenge The connections are pokey. It takes seven hours to download The Matrix at home, even using a high-speed cable modem. It takes an hour with an Ethernet connection, used in many corporate networks.
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Solution Long-distance carriers are expected to spend $7.9 billion
on the latest optical equipment
in 2000, up from $3.7 billion
last year. The gear will boost the capacity of networks by 80 to 160 times.
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Solution Phone companies will spend $17 billion this year, up from $11.5 billion in 1999, on faster versions of these regional rings, which can transmit data at 10 gigabits per second, or more than 10 times faster than older gear.
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Solution Carriers are expected to spend $386 million this year, up from $62 million in 1999, to start the long process of upgrading the local phone networks. Optical switches are, in some cases, thousands of times faster than the electrical switches.
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Solution With optical connections, customers could download The Matrix in just four seconds. Carriers such as Cogent Communications will supply them to businesses--at one-tenth the price for an equivalent connection from the phone company.
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