We're constantly bombarded by pronouncements that optical networking advances will eventually make bandwidth free. Like anyone who hears the word free, I immediately think it means at no cost to me, but as an industry analyst I also realize it's hard to build a worldwide industry by giving away bandwidth. Optical advances will change network equipment and planning, service provider offerings, and what we buy for our networks-but in ways more complicated than free bandwidth suggests.
Most networking today is dedicated to conserving bandwidth as a resource.
Principle Realities First, true optical networks won't present much of a difference in cost over distance, or from one route to another. Any route-they all cost the same. An old routing protocol, RIP, was based on selecting a path by simply counting hops and picking the one involving the fewest. RIP was replaced by more modern protocols, such as OSPF, that allowed network operators to optimize routes based on cost-meaning trunk bandwidth cost. In the future, nodes such as routers or switches may cost more than optical transport.