LATEST
Optical Networking
CPO
Co-Packaged Optics
800G
Data Center
QSFP-DD
OSFP
Pluggable Optics
Silicon Photonics
Thermal Management
Hyperscale
Power Efficiency
1.6T
Co-Packaged Optics will cut power consumption in half. CPO will eliminate transceiver inventory headaches. CPO will redefine data center design. You have heard the pitch. The pitch skips the parts that matter.
// what CPO actually does
Traditional pluggable optics sit
Rene Fichtmueller
/
2026-04-27
/
~3 min read
NOG
Opinion
Fellowship
Peering Forum
Community
NOGnet
Next Generation
Commercialized events. Alcohol at ten in the morning. Being excluded from a conference without anyone asking my side. The NOG circuit gave me some of the best relationships of my career. It also gave me this.
Rene Fichtmueller
/
2026-04-25
/
~6 min read
ADHD
ADHD Diary
Neurodivergent
Productivity
Mental Health
Remote Work
Hyperfocus
Travel
Claude Code
AI Tools
Infrastructure
No-Travel-Day
Working Memory
I travel 180 days a year. Airports, hotels, conference venues, customer meetings. Every day has a fixed schedule. Flight at 08:15. Meeting at 10:00. Dinner with customers at
Rene Fichtmueller
/
2026-04-24
/
~4 min read
Mental Health
Tech
Burnout
Infrastructure
TNC 2026
GEANT
Well-being
Toxic Culture
Always-On
Suicide Prevention
NOG
NREN
Psychological Safety
Leadership
745,000 people die from overwork every year. That number comes from the WHO and the ILO jointly, published in 2021, covering data through 2016. The actual number in 2026
Rene Fichtmueller
/
2026-04-23
/
~3 min read
Social Selling
Sales
Optical Networking
B2B
LinkedIn
FLEXOPTIX
NOG
Peering Forum
Content Marketing
Trust
Relationship Building
Infrastructure
A vendor sent me a LinkedIn message last week. "Hi Rene, I noticed you're in the optical networking space. We have a solution that could transform your
Rene Fichtmueller
/
2026-04-22
/
~3 min read
Magatama
Security Platform
Open Source
Origin Story
AppSec
Cloud Security
AI Security
LLM Defense
ShieldX
Compliance
NOG
Build in Public
TypeScript
MAGATAMA is evolving from a security dashboard into a system that detects, prioritizes, remediates, verifies and learns from real incidents.
Rene Fichtmueller
/
2026-04-21
/
~3 min read
infrastructure
adhd
self-sabotage
technology
work-life-balance
It's 3:17 AM. I'm sitting in front of my MAGATAMA dashboard watching something fascinating. My system finds an error, diagnoses it, writes a patch, tests
Rene Fichtmueller
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2026-04-20
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~5 min read
400G
TCO
Optical Transceiver
Cost Analysis
MTTR
Spare Management
Compatible Optics
Network Operations
Procurement
Secondary Market
Optical Networking
Data Center
Supply Chain
Vendor Validation
Programmable Optics
Network Engineering
Optical components are often compared based on unit price. This does not reflect the total cost. The most cost-effective component is the one that integrates without requiring ongoing effort to keep it stable.
Rene Fichtmueller
/
2026-04-17
/
~2 min read
400G
Lab Testing
Optical Validation
MPO Connector
Fiber Optic
Insertion Loss
Polarity
Data Center
Connector Inspection
RFC 2544
Link Budget
Optical Networking
OTDR
TIA-568
IEC 61300
Network Deployment
Optical Power Budget
Lab validation confirms that a configuration can work under ideal conditions. It does not guarantee that it will behave the same way in production. Understanding that limitation is critical.
Rene Fichtmueller
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2026-04-16
/
~2 min read
400G
PAM4
FEC
Forward Error Correction
KP4
Pre-FEC BER
Network Monitoring
Signal Integrity
Lane Diagnostics
Data Center Networking
NRZ
Optical Networking
oFEC
RS544
MPO Connector
Chromatic Dispersion
OSNR
An interface can be up while the link is already operating outside a stable margin. At 400G, a link being 'up' is not a useful indicator of health.
Rene Fichtmueller
/
2026-04-15
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~3 min read
// about the author
Rene Fichtmueller
Social Networker
20+ years building and breaking networks. Optical transport, peering, data center infrastructure. Writing about the things that go wrong at 2AM — and how to prevent them.