TABLE OF CONTENTS The market for FO-based communications, telecommunications and long-haul transmission networks using SONET/SDH technologies is now trying to correct itself after declining since 2000. One FO market showing promise is the metro-networks SONNET/SDH. However, this market faces challenges from Ethernet. Ten-Gigabit Ethernet (10 GE) is in great demand and some of the architectural alternatives include Ethernet over SONET, switched Ethernet over fiber, and Ethernet over WDM. The business outlook looks strong for optical transducer modules, optical switches, and routers. The latest optical module driver is designed for SONET/SDH. OC-192 or STM-64, 01-Gbits/s system. In addition, 10 GE systems have been developed for long-haul transmission, point-to-point and DWDM applications involving different transmission lengths as shown in Figure 6.3.
The market for DWDM systems has grown at a staggering pace. As more vendors are entering into FO-based businesses, wavelength- handling capacity is growing exponently. A market survey indicates that the number of carriers deploying DWDM systems has grown faster than the number of vendors selling them [3]. For the first four years of DWDM development, products focused almost exclusively on long-haul transmission that typically represented unregenerated spans of up to 600 km. The development of Raman amplifiers, along with forward error-correction techniques, has stretched the distance for the DWDM transmission without regeneration. There is a great demand worldwide for the deployment of DWDM technology in ultra long-haul communications systems. Current trends indicate that DWDM technology is migrating to the end-user, into access...
