WDM networks: A U.S. perspective

This report will focus on long-distance and metropolitan networks which have the economic advantage of sharing the cost of WDM components over large fiber length. It should, however, be mentioned that there is considerable US activity on WDM for computer networking. These efforts aim to satisfy the need for increasing bandwidth per user, higher path reliability, protocol transparency, and simplified operation and management. Note that demand for network capacity is fueled both by the rapidly increasing number of World Wide Web users and the accelerating bandwidth demand for the PC of each Wide Web user.