Communications Service Providers around the world have experienced an unprecedented explosion in demand for bandwidth due to several driving forces including more video streaming, the growing popularity in areas like cloud gaming and the increasing move to the cloud to name a few.
We are now at the start of an era where 400GbE is breaking out of data centers and displacing 100GbE as the dominant client interface requiring wide-area optical transport. This is resulting in 400G lanes becoming the new building block of optical networks to transport existing 100GbE and growing 400GbE client traffic, for both metro and long haul applications.
As we are now well than a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses are continuing to adapt to ever-changing realities. Initially, adapting involved shuttering offices and canceling work-related travel and events. Today, however, COVID-induced changes are a bit more nuanced. In fact, large enterprises with advanced technology and work from home policies may notice little difference when comparing pre-pandemic operations to today’s.
The question I am regularly asked is, “What use is OTN, when services are all IP, and routers handle connectivity directly across optical fiber connections, or wavelengths on optical fiber (IPoWDM)?”
“Smart” is the buzzword for strategic industries operating in Energy, Utilities, and Transportation. We are also starting to see this “Smart” nomenclature used in local authorities, defense and public services.
Enterprises are using Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) solutions like Microsoft Teams and Zoom, and Contact Center as a Service Solutions (CCaaS) like Five9 and Genesys to improve communications, simplify operations, and accelerate IT agility. As the COVID-19 outbreak clearly demonstrated, UCaaS and CCaaS solutions are ideal for delivering enterprise communications services to remote workers, mobile users, and small/home offices.
Enterprises are using Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) solutions like Microsoft Teams and Zoom, and Contact Center as a Service Solutions (CCaaS) like Five9 and Genesys to improve communications, simplify operations, and accelerate IT agility. As the COVID-19 outbreak clearly demonstrated, UCaaS and CCaaS solutions are ideal for delivering enterprise communications services to remote workers, mobile users, and small/home offices.
The hype of 5G is ushering in the potential for drastic network change and is driving service providers to prepare for the future. Today’s networks provide ubiquitous all-purpose IP connectivity to support all services.
