Impact of wavelength grouping method on waveband switching size in Japan topology network

The concept of waveband switching has been studied to decrease the optical cross-connect (OXC) size when the number of wavelengths increases in a link fiber, grouping several wavelength paths which pass by the same route. In waveband-switching networks, grouping methods of a few kinds has been reported. Comparisons among grouping methods on the network of ladder topology, such as Japan, have not been reported. This study investigated the influence of waveband grouping methods on the OXC size and the wavelength resource utilization efficiency. Results from numerical simulations show that grouping methods which group wavelength paths with a part of same route are preferred to grouping method which groups those with the same route.