Analyst Take with Rick Talbot | The Aggregation Network: A Whole New Animal

Wireline network operators, generally assisted by government funding, are beginning to extend their broadband services beyond metro areas, and potentially into outright rural areas. This extension of their networks beyond the reach of the edge central offices of the metro network will create a new network segment - the aggregation network, sometimes called the second-mile network. This new aggregation network will raise new networking challenges as it carries a mix of services that were previously served by separate networks and were heretofore terminated in a metro central office, therefore not requiring special transport treatment. In addition, vendors are introducing new (and sometimes novel) optical transport formats to minimize costs in this new network environment. This complexity in the aggregation network calls for network design and control specific to the aggregation network.