Travelling light. An all-optical transport network for telecommunications

Conversions between optical and electronic signals is a major bottleneck in the physical layer of today´s telecommunications networks. The author reports on a development that promises to take yet more electronics out of communications. The development is known as the Multi-Wavelength Transport Network (MWTN) project. The author describes the architecture of the MWTN optical node and in particular the InP switch. The control and management of an MWTN node is also described. The progress of the project is discussed