Ciena's Tom Mock reflects on a career in telecom

It has been a strange week for Tom Mock. Not only is it his last at Ciena, after working for the company for 18 years, it has also been abnormally quiet since many of his colleagues are away at the OFC show in Los Angeles. 

Working for one technology company for so long may be uncommon, says Mock, but not at Ciena: the CTO has clocked 20 years while the CEO boasts 15 years. 

Tom Mock: “I’m about ready to go do something else.”

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Still some way to go

Briefing: Dynamic optical networking 

Part 1: The vision .... back in 2000

I came across this article (below) on the intelligent all-optical network. I wrote it in 2000 while working at the EMAP magazine, Communications Week International, later to become Total Telecom.

What is striking is just how much of the vision of a dynamic photonic layer is still to be realised.  Back then it had also been discussed for over a decade. And bandwidth management, like in 2000, is still largely at the electrical layer.

And yet much progress has been made in networking technology. But the way the network has evolved means that a more flexible photonic layer, while wanted by operators, is only one aspect of the network optimisation they seek to reduce the cost of transporting bits.

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