White Papers

Network Efficiency Quotient (EQ): Detailed EQ Results


As Wave Division Multiplexing (WDM) scales to 100 Gb/s, 500 Gb/s and even 1 Tb/s super-channels, digital switching for bandwidth management becomes critical to deliver efficient transport networks. This paper examines four different architectural approaches to deploying digital OTN switching and introduces a financial modeling approach called the Efficiency Framework that provides the tools and methodology to measure efficiency and total cost of ownership (TCO). The results highlight the importance of evaluating the entire network topology and bandwidth growth across a number of years versus analysis focused on first-in capital expense (capex) costs in order to truly understand the capex and operational expense (opex) cost of network architecture choices.