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On 25 June 2001, Yipes, a provider of optical IP networks, announced that it has begun delivering service in New York City. Yipes reports that is has signed eight enterprise customers, and has deployed its networks to 10 major multitenant buildings and collocation facilities in the city. The company has also established connectivity to redundant Tier 1 Internet backbones.
Despite widely publicized reports of a bandwidth glut, most areas still lack adequate high-speed optical-fiber-based network connectivity, and the shortfall is particularly critical in American's urban areas and suburban business parks. Yipes' deployment of optical IP networking in New York City — one of the most difficult places in the United States to undertake any major infrastructure change — shows that creative solutions can bring bandwidth where it is needed most.
The lack of so-called "last-mile" connectivity to enterprises is proving enormously damaging to business growth. Enormous capital investment in optical networking technologies has resulted in a new generation of "metro area" Synchronous Optical Network, Optical Ethernet and wave division multiplexing equipment capable of rapidly provisioning raw optical capacity or services to urban business and suburban business parks. The standard adoption cycle for public telecommunications technology has been cut in half, and the result will likely be the deployment of faster, less expensive, more functional equipment — but only if the necessary last-mile optical fiber is in place. Gartner forecasts high growth rates for these next-generation optical networking products, but also believes that the market will be limited dramatically by the unavailability of bandwidth.
Gartner believes that the industry is at the dawn of a new age of abundant bandwidth that we call the Infocosm. The last-mile optical bottleneck — especially in America's cities — is a major obstacle to reaping the benefits of that era, which is rich in information and communications. It will take creative solutions to open up that bottleneck.
Analytical Source: John Mazur, Enterprise Network Strategies
Written by Terry Allan Hicks, gartner.com
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