Transport networks at a crossroads

Traffic in backbone networks continues to grow at rapid pace. The bulk of this growth comes from low revenue internet traffic. Naturally, this raises interest in lowering the costs of building and maintaining the transport network. It is here that some make the case for OTN switching as low-cost alternative to IP/MPLS core networks. To compare and contrast the costs of OTN versus MPLS, we undertook multiple modeling exercises. The preliminary results show that the optimal network design depends on different parameters, such as: ratio of peak to average flow demands, number of simultaneous peak demands, ratio of MPLS to OTN port costs and size of core transport interconnects. We review our model, assumptions and outcome, and highlight the impact on product and network architecture.