Webinar: Freedom to Evolve: Flex-Grid ROADM Strategies for Multi-Vendor Growth
Date & Time - 12 Nov 2025, 11am EST
Duration - 60 min
Webinar Overview
Optical backbone networks are entering a new era of growth, where bandwidth demand is outpacing traditional planning cycles. Industry research forecasts that the optical transport market will double over the next decade, while data center interconnect (DCI) deployments are expected to triple, fueled by AI, cloud computing, and the continued expansion of digital services.
In this session, Michal Naor Tanhum, VP Business Development at PacketLight, explains why fixed-grid ROADMs can't keep up with the move to 400G and 800G, and how open, flex-grid ROADM architectures let operators scale capacity on demand without forklift upgrades or vendor lock-in.
Speaker
Michal Naor Tanhum, VP of Business Development
PacketLight Networks
Michal Naor Tanhum joined PacketLight in 2005. Michal is the key executive responsible for driving and managing PacketLight's global business development, and global strategic alliances with partners worldwide. Michal brings to PacketLight over 25 years of extensive sales experience. Prior to joining PacketLight, Michal served in several sales management positions in the billing industry. Michal holds a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from the Technion, Israel's Institute of Technology.
Who will benefit from this webinar?
- Data center and telecom operators seeking to increase capacity with minimal risk.
- CTOs, network architects, and system integrators planning AI-ready infrastructure.
- Executives aiming to improve ROI and network agility while maintaining control.
Key Takeaways
- Why fixed-grid ROADMs are running out of road - Migration to 400G and 800G have exposed their limits, accelerating the shift to flex-grid architectures.
- What CDC-F means - Colorless, Directionless, Contentionless, Flex: any wavelength can be added, dropped, or routed at any port, in any direction, without conflict.
- Where ROADM adoption is growing fastest - The U.S. leads, Europe was initially an early adopter, and Asia-Pacific (China, India) is now the fastest-growing market. Adoption is also expanding beyond carriers into hospitals, research institutes, broadcasters, and utilities.
- What ROADM management looks like - PacketLight's NMS handles A-Z provisioning in six steps, topology discovery, and automatic power balancing, so small teams can run complex multi-wavelength networks.
- Proof it works in multi-vendor environments - A real PacketLight deployment runs ROADM backbone alongside third-party switches and colored optics across multiple campuses, with no added licensing cost.
- Michal's take: "Anyone that has a huge number of services or wavelengths... is moving to use ROADMs."
FAQs
1. Is the webinar recording available?
Yes. Watch the full on-demand recording above, anytime.
2. What's the difference between fixed-grid and flex-grid ROADM?
Fixed-grid ROADMs only support 50GHz or 100GHz channel spacing, capping capacity at around 96 wavelengths. Flex-grid ROADMs dynamically allocate spectrum per channel, letting 100G, 200G, 400G, and 800G coexist on the same fiber.
3. What does CDC-F mean in a ROADM?
Colorless, Directionless, Contentionless, Flex. Any wavelength can be added or dropped at any port, routed in any direction, and shared by multiple services without blocking each other.
4. Does adding a ROADM mean replacing existing network equipment?
No. Open, flex-grid ROADMs are designed to scale capacity on existing infrastructure, avoiding forklift upgrades and supporting interoperability with third-party transponders and switches.
5. How does a ROADM reduce operational overhead?
Remote, automated management, provisioning, topology discovery, and power balancing, replaces manual patching and per-wavelength attenuation, cutting downtime, configuration errors, and the staff hours needed to maintain the network.
6. Who is adopting ROADM technology today?
Beyond Tier 1 carriers, adoption is expanding into data centers, enterprises, hospitals, research institutes, broadcasters, and utilities, as component costs have dropped and the technology has matured.