Free space optical technology is another example of a solution capable of cutting provisioning times dramatically. In the core, products from new players with intensified focus on activation, provisioning and ongoing management aim to speed provisioning and lower operating expenses. Removing service personnel from the provisioning process altogether will improve service providers' time to revenue. Several startups included in the NGN line-up are readying tools to permit customers to control their own service parameters in real time. Automating the provisioning process has obvious appeal at the edge of the network, and is one of the factors that make Ethernet so attractive as the service delivery interface.
Some service providers are enthusiastic, but others have expressed doubts.
They are not ready for this revolution until they have retrofitted the rest of their network, end to end, with equipment that can respond to automated provisioning requests. Tighter control of network resources is another recurring theme. Although networks will have far more capacity in the future, it still appears unlikely that entire wavelengths will be dedicated to particular customers, or even classes of service, except possibly in the core. Several startups in the NGN Ventures program are developing techniques to manage dynamic bandwidth assignment more intelligently in environments with high lambda counts. Optical first mile solutions are making the transition to multiple wavelengths, with optimized traffic management.