The potential and promise of WDM networks

WDM can transform the telecommunications industry by effectively making bandwidth free and distance irrelevant. This would negate billing and relegate network management to a minor spectator sport. In its ultimate realisation we can envisage a zero switching network with most of the system intelligence at the periphery. All of this is difficult for the industry to subsume and comprehend, but it is inevitable. No doubt PDH, SDH and ATM will continue to be deployed, but for a future GII they are fundamentally flawed and limited.