TABLE OF CONTENTS Up to now, our attention has been focused on the development of the protocols, multiplexing, and fiber characteristics. This chapter begins our focus on the use of optical switching technologies to move our light beams where they must go. Many different approaches have been used in trying to get to this end. This relatively infant business sector has spawned several startup companies and several different technologies to achieve the same result. The result, of course, is to do the following:
Switch the information as fast as we can
Increase the efficiency of the networks
Reduce the number of times we have to convert the information from electrical to optical, and vice versa
Advanced optical network solutions also have penetrated the metropolitan area networks, which offers the application services sector a chance to capitalize on potentially huge cost and performance improvements in the areas of transport and provisioning. The application service providers (ASPs), for example, see this opportunity to expand their offerings and services with unlimited users. The manufacturers also see a new market where the older telco market can be supplemented or totally revamped.
The ASPs, and now the facilities-based integrated communications providers (ICPs), must be cognizant of the fact that the choices they make today will have an impact on their longer-term viability and competitiveness. More than 60 manufacturers and value-added organizations are developing products that target the metropolitan areas. These companies are offering SONET-based solutions; others are offering dense-wave-division multiplexing (DWDM) with variations that...
