Blazenet: a packet-switched wide-area network with photonic data path

A packet-switching network with photonic data path, Blazenet, that provides low delay and has minimal memory requirements is described. It can be extended to support multicast and priority delivery. The Blazenet design is described, addressing the issues of packet-switching and traffic congestion. A detailed switching node design is presented. Extended features that can be incorporated into Blazenet´s design-priority traffic, limiting packet lifetime, and broadcast and multicast-are described. Some issues of the higher layers that have direct implication on Blazenet´s operation are presented