There’s a debate going on right now over some issues having to do with the 40 gigabyte and 100 gigabyte issues in IP networks. Shedding light on some of the crucial issues, Shawn Morris, a senior IP engineering consultant with NTT America (News – Alert), recently spoke to TMC on this podcast.

“We were involved with the IEEE (News – Alert) high-speed study group that was formed in 2006,” Morris said, “as a precursor to the 40 gigabytes and 100 gigabyte Ethernet proposals,” adding that NTT America was not in favor of the 40 gigabyte Ethernet standard. “We felt it didn’t deliver a significant enough increase in bandwidth over a 10 gigabyte Ethernet, and that it would delay the release of 100 gigabyte Ethernet.” He noted that, “We have not seen a significant uptake in OC-768 in either the infrastructure or customer termination side.” In fact, Morris said, he and his company feel it’s entirely possible that 40 gigabyte Ethernet may follow the same path. “We feel the area between 10 and 100 gigabytes can be adequately handled with link aggregation and network infrastructure.” And 40-gigabyte Ethernet, he explained, most likely will have a role in the data center, for a server connection and layer 2 aggregations. “But for now, we’re not sure how prevalent it will be in IP transit networks.