The Innovative Optical Wireless Network (IOWN) Global Forum held its fourth annual member meeting in Vancouver, Canada. It was an opportunity for it to show where it was in terms of technology and goals. There were a lot of very detailed discussions about the technology.
To understand more about where IOWN is heading, Enterprise Times editor Ian Murphy had the opportunity to talk with Gonzalo Camarillo from Ericsson and Lieven Levrau from Nokia. Both are committee members at IOWN. Camarillo is the chair of the marketing steering committee, and Levrau is the technical steering committee chair.
In this podcast, they talk about why photonics is so important to the future of computing. The phrase used constantly is “from electronics to photonics.” That shift is aimed at delivering far lower power consumption and faster connectivity. Camarillo said, “You can basically distribute your data centres, and you don’t need so much power in one single place.”
Importantly, this is not just about an industry talking shop. When asked about use cases, Levrau says, “The requirements are coming from a plethora of different industries. We have financial industries, we have automobile, we have gaming industries, we have construction. Of course, we have the normal classical operators and the ones that sell the equipment.”
That spread of industries and use cases is central to what IOWN is looking to do. It wants to bring the consumers of the technology with it on this journey. There is also a realism here. As both men said, IOWN is not a standards body and that means working with other technical organisations. It also accepts that this is not going to be a sudden change.
The move from electronics to photonics will take years, decades even, and during that time, there will be a hybrid model. That shouldn’t present impossible challenges.
To hear more of what Camarillo and Levrau had to say, listen to the podcast.
Podchaser verification code: lTzplGqfLTpSMK4R3wU3
Where can I get it?
You can listen to the podcast by clicking on the player below. Alternatively, click on any of the podcast services below and go to the Enterprise Times podcast page.
