Future tech: telecom's hottest technologies - Cover Story - critical technologies that will drive the telecom industry during next five years and beyond are discussed
These are tough times in telecoms; capex is out, ROI is in. CFOs stalk telco boardrooms striking down new projects.
In this environment it's sometimes hard to remember that telecom thrives on technology advances. In the last 30 years the introduction of optical fiber, digital switching and cellular radio alone has revolutionized this industry and the way the planet communicates.
And while the telecom downturn raises the bar on carrier network spending, that doesn't stop technology competition. In fact, the demand for increased efficiency and ROI is driving CTOs and, yes, CFOs to acquire smarter, more efficient and more robust technologies before rivals do.
In this environment it's sometimes hard to remember that telecom thrives on technology advances. In the last 30 years the introduction of optical fiber, digital switching and cellular radio alone has revolutionized this industry and the way the planet communicates.
And while the telecom downturn raises the bar on carrier network spending, that doesn't stop technology competition. In fact, the demand for increased efficiency and ROI is driving CTOs and, yes, CFOs to acquire smarter, more efficient and more robust technologies before rivals do.
This special report by Telecom Asia staff analyzes the critical technologies most likely to drive the industry over the next five years and beyond.
Some are core technologies, like nanotech and mesh networking, that could change the entire cost structure of hardware and networks. Others are major enhancements of existing tech, such as Wi-Fi and optical Ethernet, that also have serious disruptive potential. Others, like UWB and Powerline are new innovations altogether.
Though many of these are still in early stage R&D, some are already making their way into carrier business plans. Yet, as ever, it will be some time before we can truly assess how these will impact the way operators build networks and deliver and price services; it is this unpredictability that is the core challenge of telecommunications.
Despite the uncertainty, of one thing there is no doubt: the slowdown may have hit growth, but it certainly hasn't halted innovation.
Some are core technologies, like nanotech and mesh networking, that could change the entire cost structure of hardware and networks. Others are major enhancements of existing tech, such as Wi-Fi and optical Ethernet, that also have serious disruptive potential. Others, like UWB and Powerline are new innovations altogether.
Though many of these are still in early stage R&D, some are already making their way into carrier business plans. Yet, as ever, it will be some time before we can truly assess how these will impact the way operators build networks and deliver and price services; it is this unpredictability that is the core challenge of telecommunications.
Despite the uncertainty, of one thing there is no doubt: the slowdown may have hit growth, but it certainly hasn't halted innovation.
NANOTECHNOLOGY: Let's get small
Recent advances in nanotech promise great things for telecoms. In the strictest sense, nanotechnology is a thousand times smaller than microtechnology, and 1/80,000 the diameter of a human hair. The MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) technology used in tunable lasers, tunable filters, variable optical attenuators, dynamic gain equalizers, and the micromirrors in all-optical switches is microtech, not nanotech.
The same goes for the next-gen 90-nm transistors that Motorola, STMicrolectronics and Philips plan to start manufacturing by the end of 2002, as well as the 90-nm "strained silicon" transistors that Intel says it will produce next year.
Regardless of the (sorry) hair-splitting, however, the components of telecoms technology are getting smaller, and there are over 900 start-ups working to make it happen. In the optical space, MEMS is already an inherent part of all-optical switches currently on sale from Ciena, Corvis, Sycamore, and Tellium, but that's just the start.
New Jersey-based start-up NanoOpto has been generating considerable buzz with its "subwavelength optical elements", which essentially do the same things as simple passive optical components like filters and couplers, but on the nanometer level.
One reason for the buzz is that NanoOpto's components aren't vaporware. The company introduced its first components in March this year. This past September, NanoOpto began shipping trial samples of its SubWave Phase Management components called waveplates, which helps optical subsystems to compensate for dispersion by slowing down light.
Meanwhile, companies like Canada's Galian Photonics and University of Southampton offshoot Mesophotonics are developing so-called "photonic crystals" which guide light along a path on a micron distance scale, overcoming design barriers for ail-optical components, although actual products are a few years away.
MEMS/nanotech isn't just about fiber optics. In July, for instance, US semiconductor company Kopin announced a new range of LED chips called CyberLite that use nanotech to get around the natural atomic-level defects of LED chips that occur every 100 nanometers which usually prevent the chips from operating any lower than 3 volts. Kopin's "NanoPockets" technique essentially keeps light away from the defects, resulting in a brighter, low-power LED at 2.8 or 2.9 volts that can be used as backlighting for cell phone or PDA screens and keypads, among other things.
Another company, Discera, uses MEMS technology to make a receiver called a "vibrating mechanical resonator" which could give radio devices like cell phones better frequency selectivity and improved battery life.
Nanotech is also promising to change the rules on things like data storage. The University of Arizona Optical Data Storage Center is working on a technique for using MEMS probe devices to read and write on cheap nanotech organic films, allowing data to be written, read and stored in clusters of molecules. The result: storage measured in terabits per square inch. In lay terms, that's 1,540 CDs packed onto a single CD.
Nanotech will even have its own markup language in the near future. Virginia-based NanoTitan has already written one--an open source software code called nanoML that's intended to do for nanocomputing what HTML did for the Web by helping engineers define the elements needed to build integrated nanocomputing devices and nanosystems.
Recent advances in nanotech promise great things for telecoms. In the strictest sense, nanotechnology is a thousand times smaller than microtechnology, and 1/80,000 the diameter of a human hair. The MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) technology used in tunable lasers, tunable filters, variable optical attenuators, dynamic gain equalizers, and the micromirrors in all-optical switches is microtech, not nanotech.
The same goes for the next-gen 90-nm transistors that Motorola, STMicrolectronics and Philips plan to start manufacturing by the end of 2002, as well as the 90-nm "strained silicon" transistors that Intel says it will produce next year.
Regardless of the (sorry) hair-splitting, however, the components of telecoms technology are getting smaller, and there are over 900 start-ups working to make it happen. In the optical space, MEMS is already an inherent part of all-optical switches currently on sale from Ciena, Corvis, Sycamore, and Tellium, but that's just the start.
New Jersey-based start-up NanoOpto has been generating considerable buzz with its "subwavelength optical elements", which essentially do the same things as simple passive optical components like filters and couplers, but on the nanometer level.
One reason for the buzz is that NanoOpto's components aren't vaporware. The company introduced its first components in March this year. This past September, NanoOpto began shipping trial samples of its SubWave Phase Management components called waveplates, which helps optical subsystems to compensate for dispersion by slowing down light.
Meanwhile, companies like Canada's Galian Photonics and University of Southampton offshoot Mesophotonics are developing so-called "photonic crystals" which guide light along a path on a micron distance scale, overcoming design barriers for ail-optical components, although actual products are a few years away.
MEMS/nanotech isn't just about fiber optics. In July, for instance, US semiconductor company Kopin announced a new range of LED chips called CyberLite that use nanotech to get around the natural atomic-level defects of LED chips that occur every 100 nanometers which usually prevent the chips from operating any lower than 3 volts. Kopin's "NanoPockets" technique essentially keeps light away from the defects, resulting in a brighter, low-power LED at 2.8 or 2.9 volts that can be used as backlighting for cell phone or PDA screens and keypads, among other things.
Another company, Discera, uses MEMS technology to make a receiver called a "vibrating mechanical resonator" which could give radio devices like cell phones better frequency selectivity and improved battery life.
Nanotech is also promising to change the rules on things like data storage. The University of Arizona Optical Data Storage Center is working on a technique for using MEMS probe devices to read and write on cheap nanotech organic films, allowing data to be written, read and stored in clusters of molecules. The result: storage measured in terabits per square inch. In lay terms, that's 1,540 CDs packed onto a single CD.
Nanotech will even have its own markup language in the near future. Virginia-based NanoTitan has already written one--an open source software code called nanoML that's intended to do for nanocomputing what HTML did for the Web by helping engineers define the elements needed to build integrated nanocomputing devices and nanosystems.
Source : www.findarticles.com
