Evolution of optical transport technologies: from SONET/SDH to WDM

Author

Cavendish, Dirceu

Author_Institution

C&C Res. Labs., USA

Volume

38

Issue

6

fYear

2000

fDate

6/1/2000 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

164

Lastpage

172

Abstract

It took roughly 10 years for the transport network industry to migrate from PDH to SONET. As this technology swap comes to an end, WDM technology is dawning, promising to revolutionize the network industry, with the possibility of transport bit rates above 10 Gb/s as well as transparency to signal encodings. However, a new wave of equipment upgrade is unlikely to happen as current SONET equipment is just beginning to pay off for its large investment. Thus, in years to come, SONET technology, the current standard for optical fiber access, will have to make room for WDM technology in a gradual way. On its part, WDM equipment must be developed to be backward compatible with SONET technology. This article discusses the requirements and issues involved in making WDM technology interoperable with SONET legacy equipment, as well as the evolution path toward a transparent optical transport network

Keywords

SONET; open systems; optical communication equipment; optical fibre networks; synchronous digital hierarchy; wavelength division multiplexing; PDH; SONET legacy equipment; SONET/SDH; WDM equipment; WDM technology; interoperable technology; network industry; optical fiber access standard; optical transport technologies; signal encoding; transparent optical transport network; transport bit rates; transport network industry; Bandwidth; Communication standards; High speed optical techniques; Optical fiber communication; Optical fiber devices; Optical fibers; SONET; Synchronous digital hierarchy; WDM networks; Wavelength division multiplexing;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Communications Magazine, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0163-6804

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/35.846090

Filename

846090