ABSTRACT
Wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) — transmitting many light beams of different wavelengths simultaneously through an optical fiber — and
wave-
length routing
æ
a network switching or routing node that routes signals based on their wavelengths — are rapidly becoming technologies-of-choice to meet the tremendous bandwidth demand of the new millennium. Several important advantages, such as increased usable bandwidth (nearly 50 THz)
on an optical fiber, reduced electronic processing cost, protocol transparency, and low bit-error rates (BER [10-12 to 10-9]), have made wavelength-routed WDM optical networks a de facto standard for high-speed backbone transport networks. In the emerging next-generation transport networks, called intelligent optical networks, WDM-based optical components such as add-drop multiplexers (ADMs) and optical cross-connects (OXCs) will have full knowledge of the wavelengths in the network, status, and traffic-carrying capacity of each wavelength. With such intelligence, these (intelligent) optical networks could create self-connecting and self-regulating connections on-the-fly.
