The optical network is the best candidate for backhaul, while wireless mesh can increase the reach of access network in a cost effective fashion. Marrying them together will produce the convergence network - a network for future operation!
Both the optical and wireless networks have seen a massive growth in the recent past. Although both of them are gaining ground individually, we have not seen any significant research activities to exploit both in unison. Potentially we have an excellent research opportunity in complimenting with the industry effort in making convergence networks a success.
In the last few months, the networking industry has commercially deployed convergence networks in several places in the US and in the Europe. A lot of activities are going on, which makes "convergence networks" an industry buzzword. The proponents of this architecture envision deploying the network in every major US cities in the next few years. Major industry players are Tropos Networks Inc., BelAir Networks Inc., Firetide Inc., Strix System Inc., and many more startups like Wavion Inc., along with industry big-brothers like Nortel Networks Ltd., Motorola Inc., and Cisco Systems Inc.
Are we (university researchers) lacking behind the industry effort? We better not lack, otherwise we will miss an excellent opportunity to sow the seeds when the ground is fertile!
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1 comments:
Nice post. It seems a lot of work is going on in the industry to deploy wireless mesh networks in big cities. After all, it s a big market.
But it is not uncommon for research to lack behind industry. Take for example, internet over Cable TV. The industry matured very fast, however it is very difficult to dig up research literature is this area.
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