The paper talks about the advent of high-bandwidth over-the-top (OTT) services, the explosion of broadband and mobile data in emerging markets. It also describes how the growth of large web-based internet companies such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook is creating a disruptive impact on the wholesale bandwidth industry. The paper decodes how Alien Wave technology has emerged as a popular, technologically mature, and cost-effective method to rapidly upgrade capacities on “Brownfield” DWDM networks without having to invest in a new capital-intensive network over the last few years. This paper also provides an overview of Alien Wave technology, benefits over conventional solutions, common implementation challenges, and mitigation techniques to ensure a resilient and high-performance deployment.