Mark J. Soulliere

Two-fiber optical shared protection ring with bi-directional 4/spl times/4 optical switch fabrics

A two-fiber optical shared protection ring has been demonstrated with a protection time under 7 ms, and a revert to normal time of under 2 ms. The number of 4/spl times/4 optical switch fabrics required to perform the protection switching has been reduced from two per optical channel to one. This reduction in number of optical switches is enabled by the inclusion of interleavers to separate and combine the two wavelengths of the duplex optical channel. The switches then operated in a bi-directional fashion, allowing the add and drop of an optical channel to propagate the same optical path through the switch. This leads to cost savings if eight interleavers or bandsplitters cost less than the 4/spl times/4 optical switch fabric technology being used.

Transparent optical protection ring architectures and applications

This paper reviews recent progress in optical protection rings with the focus on transparent optical protection rings. Different optical protection ring architectures, such as dedicated and shared protection rings, in both the optical-channel (OCh) layer and the optical multiplex section (OMS) layer, are described. In particular, OCh shared protection rings (OChSPRINGs) are discussed in detail including node-architecture designs, ring protocols, triggers, and messaging channels. Feasibility studies and experimental results from Corning Inc. and other companies are reviewed. The paper also discusses how protection-switching times scale with number of nodes and number of wavelengths, and shows examples of applications using the scaling rules for practical optical networks such as metro, regional, and long-haul ring networks. The cost benefits of transparent optical protection rings are analyzed using a typical metro network. Finally, the paper discusses remaining issues and future developments in the optical protection ring area.

Time-resolved performance analysis of a second-order PMD compensator

Design, test, and performance requirement and analysis for a polarization-mode-dispersion compensator (PMDC) with four degrees of freedom is presented. The performance is analyzed on the basis of time-integrated and time-resolved bit-error ratio (BER) measurements. Signal impairments are generated by both, first- and higher-order emulators. The probability distributions of bit errors measured over many one second intervals exhibit very long tails. Therefore even a PMDC with a good average BER performance may result in a significant total outage time for a given system.

Value proposition for configurable optical network elements

The value of configurable optical network elements for the fast provisioning of wavelength services is assessed against manual provisioning. Results are presented that were obtained by evaluating the long haul wavelength circuit provisioning process.

Value of agile transparent optical networks

We describe how and why agile transparent optical networks can lower the cost of building and maintaining a long haul network. We analyze the key value drivers of a transparent network and explore the implications for key optical components and modules.

Transparent ultralong-haul optical networks enabled by broadcast and select OADMs

Fully reconfigurable broadcast and select OADMs are compared to conventional designs for ULH networks. The feasibility of an 80 x 10.7 Gb/s broadcast and select OADM chain with an unregenerated reach exceeding 4160 km is demonstrated. Key engineering issues for widespread commercial deployment of all-optical ULH networks include ASE noise accumulation, filter concatenation effects, dispersion, fiber non-linearity, and crosstalk impairments.