Similarly, the light detectors which receive the signal must operate at three times the speed. The system runs at a signaling rate of nearly 40 Gbps, comprising 768 OC-1s, each of which started life as a T3, each of which comprises 28 T1s. While the specifics of the various overhead types and the network management functions they serve are outside the scope of this column, suffice it to say that they are considerable. First, a standardized approach allows the construction of a multi-vendor network comprising various equipment built by multiple manufacturers. In the absence of standards, a given network must be based on the products of a single manufacturer.
Standards encourage competition, which lowers costs.
More interest yields even more competition which yields even lower costs for even greater levels of bandwidth. First, the equipment is very costly. Second, the amount of overhead is considerable. As overhead consumes bandwidth, less bandwidth is available for payload. That means additional cost and complexity.