The vast amount of data zipping between neighborhoods is clogging the electrical switches designed to direct voice calls to their destination. The connections are pokey. It takes seven hours to download The Matrix at home, even using a high-speed cable modem. It takes an hour with an Ethernet connection, used in many corporate networks. The gear will boost the capacity of networks by 80 to 160 times.
Optical switches are, in some cases, thousands of times faster than the electrical switches.
Solution With optical connections, customers could download The Matrix in just four seconds. The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.