Well Walter you will get no argument from me and would agree. I said it before and I will say it again that this is a global economy with a huge inexpensive labor force in the East. Political rhetoric aside those manufacturing jobs are not coming back to the West so "invention is truly the mother of necessity", particularly if you do not have a manufacturing base. Things have to change and will change because we can't continue to live in a grey world with grey technology.
Companies like CISCO already have the technology and product IE CISCO ASR 9000/ONS1500 series that includes DWDM, Adtran's TA3000, etc. etc. etc. IMO, we need the fiber infrastructure up and running which requires more VZ's and France Telecoms to launch the "New Paradigm" and it will happen. For it to happen sooner rather than later it requires countries like here in the US to get serious and recognize the economic drivers that optical networking will provide. I own TXP because I truly believe these disruptive technologies, some of which are ready now, will create a huge demand for gateways/ONTs/ONUs etc.
The question is and always has been, what will be the drivers or serious disruptive innovations? A move to an all optical internet/optical computing is great but you still need the world leaders to recognize what drivers an all optical internet/computer environment will spawn. Then governments have to provide sufficient incentives for private industry, probably in the form of tax credits to build out these optical networks. IMO, these drivers have to be more than the perception of supplying sufficient bandwidth for voice, video & data for the telecoms & cable MSOs to compete. I believe this is starting to be recognized globally or the CISCO's of the world would not be investing in and building these optical platforms in the first place. It will come first in a paradigm shift in the way world leaders think.
In my view there are many drivers that will turn some heads and it starts with the basics of conservation & ecology that in turn creates employment. I would hope with a new administration getting ready to take over here in the US one of the first items on a new agenda will be a very serious administration that appoints a cabinet position in the form of a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) that has teeth. Frankly IMO, even the United Nations if they want to be taken seriously should focus on this as well.
Start with a realistic world vision and there are some basic but very real drivers:
1. Optical VS Electrical:
We now know how destructive higher fuel costs can be to the entire global economy. In my view it is a no brainer to encourage optical solutions over electrical to ween ourselves off the dependency of fossil fuels. Optical networking certainly does that especially when technologies like WDM/DWDM are commercially feasible.
2. Ecology:
IMO you couldn't ask for a more elegant solution than light over fossil fuels/electricity to reduce carbon emissions. You even have the advantage of no nuclear waste when compared to going nuclear.
3. Optical networking driving other technologies:
Seems to me that where light is substituted for much of the electrical requirements in a passive optical network one could go right to the head-end and replace the electrical requirements with other technologies as photovoltaic, solar, wind, geothermal technologies etc.
4. In-home/office energy Management:
The ability to be able to manage your homes energy requirement remotely & wireless via a fiber back-haul PIPE in conjunction with existing technologies like ZIGBEE RF technology etc.
5. Reduced Corporate OPEX:
Hypothetically what if you could reduce 25% of the worlds electricity demand by substituting electrically driven with optics/photonics driven applications? I have got to believe your ROI on an optical infrastructure is reasonable based on what we have experienced with the recent oil price spikes. Optical networks in my view is another form of future proofing and breaking dependency on fossil fuels. I just hope that with oil prices falling off a cliff as of late peole and governments think prices will stay low for a long time. Eventually the world economies will come back and guess what will happen with the price of oil.
I could go on and on but my point is that optical technology as a PIPE or highway so to speak opens the doors for existing technologies as well as future technologies. This in turn will spur "DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION" and I for one believe it could happen sooner rather than later. This is how I perceive Gates comments about an all optical network leading to optical computing and creating a paradigm shift.
Hopefully the collective leadership will get off their collective buts not only here in the US but globally and see the light LOL.
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