Moore's Law and energy and operations savings in the evolution of optical transport platforms

As a telecommunications equipment vendor, we have witnessed a tremendous increase in the capacity of transport equipment over the past 16 years. Platforms have evolved from the first generation add/drop multiplexer to the next generation multiservice provisioning platform and today's packet optical transport platform. This article discusses our findings in the application of Moore's Law to these optical transport platforms in capacity, power, space, and capital cost. It also discusses our findings in using Moore's Law as a presumption to explore the operations cost savings in power consumption, office floor space, and maintenance. Payback periods for the capital cost of new technology from energy and operations savings are investigated. The conclusions justify the replacement of the network technology for every other generation.