ABSTRACT
Exchange Carriers Standards Association (ECSA) developed synchronous optical network (SONET) for ANSI. Synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) is the international equivalent of SONET. These standards define the optical telecommunication transport for the U.S. and European Telecommunications. The SONET and SDH are technologies for network transport. They use synchronous operations in facilitating real-time data, voice, and video transmission through fiber optic cabling. The rates range from 51.84 Mbps (OC-1 or optical carrier level 1) to 13.271 Gbps (OC-255). High-speed communications from different vendors are interconnected by applying the SONET standard. The ability of SONET to transport many different digital signals using a standard synchronous transport signal (STS) format is its major attribute. We will discuss the SONET and SDH in this chapter. The SONET signal, frame, components, topologies, and standards will also be discussed.
