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Volume discount means that the cost of a resource increases at a rate that is lower than the linear increase of the rate, e.g., the cost of a 40-Gbps transceiver can eventually be 2.5 times that of a 10-Gbps transceiver under steady-state conditions, which is less than the rate increase of four times. This scale-up factor is independent of modulation scheme, i.e., with same modulation scheme the scale-up ratio in cost is 2.5 times from 10 to 40-Gbps and 1.5 times from 40 to 100-Gbps transceivers. However, if different modulation schemes are used for different line rates, the scale-up factors will change depending on the different hardware complexities associated with different modulation schemes.