Is now the time to break away from fixed spectrum and transceivers?

There has been much debate surrounding flexgrid and bit rate elastic transceivers recently, together with many publications and a great deal of industry enthusiasm. Studies of potential 400Gb/s transmission suggest that the 50GHz spaced, ITU standardized grid is too rigid, and will ultimately be replaced, and this becomes even more critical at 1Tb/s. These bit rates have already been discussed with respect to future potential Ethernet rates. On the other hand, future transceivers will be able to adjust modulation format and even bit rate, dynamically, dependent on bandwidth and reach requirements for the channel. One topical idea is that the IP layer, which is providing variable bandwidth for the optical transmission layer, could do this directly by adjusting the optical bandwidth, and thereby achieving a close synergy between the two layers. This workshop will assess the current status of both flexgrid and elastic transceiver technologies and how they could be applied to future networks. Speakers range from major carriers to transport and router vendors as well as some key players from the research community, all of whom will give much needed contexts for what is likely to be a very lively discussion.