Are people still building SONET networks from scratch?

Thu Sep 6 16:47:52 UTC 2012

On the surface this makes me want to cry.  I could be missing something as
well.

On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 12:38 PM, Will Orton <will at loopfree.net> wrote:

> We've run into an issue with a customer that has been confounding us for a
> few
> months as we try to design what they need.
>
> The customer has a location in the relative middle of nowhere that they are
> trying to build a protected OC3 to. Ultimately, their traffic on it will be
> packet data (IP/ethernet, not channelized/voice). But they seem to be
> absolutely 100% set on the idea that they build with Cisco ONS boxes and
> that
> they run and control the D1-D12 bytes in order to manage protection
> switching
> on the OC3 (and have their DCC channel for management).
>
> Since this is the middle of nowhere, we are having to piece it together
> from a
> few runs of dark fiber here and there and lit services from about 3 other
> providers to get from the desired point A to the desired point B. The
> issues
> we seem to be hitting are:
>
> -We seem to be unable to find anyone who sells lit OC3 with D1-D12
> transparency for the client. Sometimes we can get D1-D3, but that's it.
>
> -lit OC3/12/48 is ridiculously expensive comapred to 1g ethernet waves or
> 10g
> waves (choice LAN/WAN ethernet or OC192)
>
> 10g waves are cheap enough that we have entertained the idea of buying
> them and
> putting OC-192/muxponders on the ends to provide the OC-3, but even then
> I'm
> having trouble finding boxes that will do D1-D12 transparency for client
> OC-3.
> Building the whole thing on dark fiber so that we could specify the exact
> equipment on every hop isn't going to happen, as the "protect" path is
> about
> 1000 miles and the geography is such that we don't really have a market
> for all
> the other wasted capacity there would be on that path.
>
> Having much more experience with ethernet/packet/MPLS setups, we are
> trying to
> get the client to admit that 1g/10g waves running ethernet with QoS would
> be as
> good as or better in terms of latency, jitter, and loss for their packet
> data.
> So far they will barely listen to the arguments. And then going the next
> leap
> and showing them that we could work towards <50ms protection switching with
> MPLS/BFD/etc packet-based protocols is another stretch.
>
>
> Am I missing something here that my customer isn't, or is it the other way
> around?
>
> -Will
>
>