The Granular FlexE Standard: An Attractive Option For Smaller ISPs
Recently a client wanted a port and burst Layer 2 service, similar to what Megaport offers in many parts of the world. The customer wanted to pay a fixed port fee and a variable fee for bursting traffic. In the past this setup used Layer 2 Switched Ethernet. The drawback was the cost of Ethernet switching, network management, and the possibility that the provider would severely overbook the service. Making money on such a service is very hard without overbooking. However, most large capacity providers just sell dumb, Layer 1 pipes. So until recently smaller ISPs had few options. Either Megaport or standard chunky Layer 1 waves. The challenge is that many ISPs has peak traffic well below standard 100G wave services, but above 10G. So rightsizing the network is extremely hard. The good news is that the Optical Internetworking Forum developed the FlexE interface standard, which I view as a Layer 1.5 option. It enjoys all the advantages of layer 1 in terms of hard traffic separation, optic...