All-optical networks: principles, solutions and challenges

Great strides have been made in recent years in the area of all-optical networking in terms of networking, transmission, componentry and management. There still remain some outstanding challenges in all these areas, in particular low cost dispersion techniques (both fixed and tuneable), non-intrusive optical monitoring (for both OSNR and BER) and finally the appropriate level of network management to address operators short and long term ambitions. In order to test these out it is absolutely essential that extensive trialling of products at a network level is carried out and to date there has been insufficient work in this area with most vendors focusing on point solutions. Once these outstanding issues have been flushed out there remains the prospect to make a disruptive change the the transport networks of tomorrow in terms of reduced cost and functionality.