Alien wdm isn't common in long haul systems though, if so the provider typically provides the transponder. Usually customers use regular grey (1310nm 10G-LR) to the provider and the provider turns that into something compatible with their dwdm system.

Huh, interesting, I didn't know this was a thing at all. But you still need to make sure you don't have a stupid customer sending 1000baseLX with direct detection in the other side for this to work. :-)