Dimensioning of a single layer optical platform based on the “switchless” concept for large scale networks

The European Union ACTS project SONATA is going to demonstrate a switchless, all-optical network to provide a future single-layer, advanced transport architecture on a national scale. The single-hop, shared-access network employs time and wavelength agility (a WDMA/TDMA protocol), using fast tunable transmitters and receivers to route individual customer connections as well as bandwidth pipes through a single wavelength router (suitably replicated for resilience). No electronic switching nodes or cross-connects (telephony, IF, ATM, SDH) are required within the transport network, nor optical cross-connects (save the wavelength routing node), thus providing major transport architecture simplifications and hardware reductions. The network is scalable to 200 Tbit/s throughput over 1,000 km, connecting 20 million terminals operating at 622 Mbit/s over 50,000-way split “hyperPONs”, by means of 800 WDM channels with 0.05 nm channel spacing (6.25 GHz). This paper reports details on the network dimensioning, and network control issues