In the last two years, optical networking has risen into the public consciousness in many different ways. It has become the next great technological thing — businesses want it, service providers want to sell it, device manufacturers want to provide equipment, and component manufacturers are scrambling to supply pieces and parts to all of them. At the time of this writing, an 18-month backlog on optical fiber and some optical amplifiers exists because of the enormous and unanticipated demand for highbandwidth optical connectivity. Corporate decision makers are now being placed in positions of having to assess the strategic, tactical, and operational value of optical networking within their own corporations
