Bill, Jerry, Steve, et. al.
I don't think I can over stress that the operational issue is not what the
technology can support but what patterns the commercial fiber providers of
the future will adopt. IMHO, operating separate channels of a WDM
drop-and-insert will is no different from operating separate SONET/SDH
drop-and-insert. Furthermore, the operational comparisions of multiple
point-to-point links with a staticstically multiplexed link has been
explored extensively on this list.
However, can one *reasonably* expect that the owners of fiber in the ground
to allow dark fiber access for the average (or even larger-than-average)
network operator. Will the owners of the fiber allow the network operator
to manipulate and re-structure his own drop-and-insert revisions over their
dark fiber network? IMHO, the best you can reasonably expect is a
dedicated port at both ends of a point-to-point link. If the price is
right, you can expect to buy as many of these point-to-point links as you
can afford. But physical control and network re-structuring will remain
in the hands of the fiber plant owner-operator.
Perhaps a network operator can plant dark fiber in a campus or regional
deployment for extended WDM use. But I suspect the budget would need to be
a lot larger (or you would need a really sweet political deal) to gain
national access to dark fiber to implement and control the OADM or WDM
equipment.
The answers to Jerry's original question and the probability of a network
operator truly controlling his own WDM network will come from future
commercial practice of the fiber owners.
..mike..