 This is JSA TV and JSA Podcast, the newsroom for telecom and data center professionals. I'm Dean Perine, EVP at JSA, coming to you from ITW 2020. The virtual ITW joining me today is Mr. Stacey Ferrar, who is responsible for business development and Mr. Gavin McMillan. Gavin is responsible for global sales, both gentlemen coming from XKL. Welcome to JSA TV. Thank you, Dean. Stacey, let's start with you. Why don't you tell us what's new in the world of optical transport? Sure. I think what most folks in the optical world have been talking about are these 400 and 400 ZRZR plus optical optics. They're the small form factor lasers, modules that are able to be fit into where your QSFP plus or your SFP plus used to be fit in. However, you got four times, you know, 100 bandwidth streams going down the pipe. So these lasers are not only increasing the amount of bandwidth, but they're also making it possible for organizations to build networks a little more economically in the metro area and able to provide more bandwidth to their end customers. Excellent. Thank you, Stacey. So let's just stick with you. So how are these new 4G modules changing the current models for optical transport? Sure, Dean. Thanks. So basically what 400G modules are doing are separating out a metro and long-haul networks. So the 400G ZR and the ZR plus are making it easier to do metro networks in a shorter time frame. And what that means is you're able to plug these small form factor modules into your router switch, and all you need is a really good multiplexer to aggregate these new lasers. Now, there are some gotchas. These lasers are very OSNR sensitive and dispersion sensitive. And what that means is you would probably need dispersion compensation and amplifiers to make them work. However, for the long-haul, you still need transponders that are able to go long distances and have amplifiers in the middle. Thank you. You got it. You got it. Gavin, this one's for you pretty timely right now. How has the current pandemic kind of shifted companies' focus and forecast for building out networks? Well, the organizations that we're talking to are all saying pretty much the same thing. The employees are now working from home. That means the data has shifted from a core network location such as the data center to the residential or urban location. And that brings its own complications because the enterprise was typically fed by enterprise-grade carriers before. Now the employees are being fed by urban network providers, the cable TV companies, ISPs, etc. So what we're finding is the middle mile has shifted just slightly. We're still dealing with a lot of the interconnects who are doing the peering relationships between all the carriers. But now we're starting to see that the data has moved. So it's less of an intense focus on a single location to a dispersed focus over a larger geographic location. Very interesting. Stacey, I'm going to kick it back over to you. When cloud services have become cumbersome and too expensive, what are the next steps in accommodating bandwidth needs? So in the telecom world and networking world, we say there's many ways it's going to get. And really it comes down to personal preference. So there's multiple ways that you could handle that issue. One of those is buying a lease circuit from your local ISP or somebody like that. But there's also the other route, which is what we favor, which is doing it yourself. And that's going to your local ISP and getting some dark fiber, getting your own optical transport, peer to their local internet exchange, and then managing that service. That solution is much more scalable and manageable in the long term and it benefits the end customer more greatly. Very good. Gavin, last question is for you. More pandemic stuff here, but specific to 5G build out. So how has or has the existing COVID-19 pandemic impacted 5G build outs? And what do you think ultimately the outcome of that will be? That's a very interesting question and it follows on nicely from what Stacey just said. And actually from what I'd said previously to do with where the data is shifted to. So now we see ourselves with our employees, our data consumers being in remote locations or further from the central office at least. So fixed 5G and mobile 5G is the ultimate solution providing that level of guaranteed bandwidth that they require from their home location. We're also seeing a heavy push in a lot of countries, especially the developing nations across Europe, the UK, North America. We're seeing a faster push for the 5G rollouts. What's slowing that down is providing enough bandwidth to the individual towers. As you probably know, 5G requires far more towers per distance of coverage than the previous 4G needed. So we're seeing a lot more interest in our e-velocity products. So we can light up more tower locations with one single box than could be done previously. It's actually 2.4 times the amount of towers. So the push for us has really been very exciting to see that rollout happen and providing that extended network solution to the actual data consumer. Stacey, Gavin, thank you guys very much for being with us today. We really appreciate it and thank you viewers for watching JSA TV and listening to JSA Podcast. We'll see you soon.