Optical Networking Technology

- Overview

Optical networks provide the communications backbone of the Internet. With the exponential growth of Internet traffic and the diversification of services and applications, the capacity of optical networks is also expanding.

Optical transmission systems generally refer to point-to-point optical links between transmitters and receivers, while communication networks are more general and include communication between a large number of users in many different locations, as well as a variety of different types of communication. Services and Applications.

In addition to ensuring the communication quality between users, the optical network must also consider the efficiency and flexibility of resource sharing when multiple users access the same network at the same time. Low likelihood of traffic congestion and congestion, high communication capacity available to users, and high reliability are desirable characteristics of optical networks.

In order for optical networks to be efficient and provide various types of services to a large number of users, network developers, operators and users must agree on a set of rules and regulations. Depending on the application requirements, various optical network architectures have been developed and standardized.

- All Optical Networks

In the existing communication network based on optical multiplexing technology, each node of the network needs to complete the optical/electrical/optical conversion, and still exchange the rate of electrical signal processing information, and the electronic components in it are adapted to the high speed. 

In the demand for large capacity, there are disadvantages such as bandwidth limitation, clock skew, serious crosstalk, and high power consumption, which lead to the phenomenon of "electronic bottleneck" in the communication network. 

In order to solve this problem, the concept of All Optical Network was proposed. The so-called all-optical network means that the entire process of data transmission and exchange from the source node to the end user node is carried out in the optical domain, that is, the end-to-end complete optical path without the intervention of electrical signals in the middle.

All Optical Network means that the signal is only converted into electricity/light and light/electricity when entering and leaving the network, and it always exists in the form of light when it is transmitted and exchanged in the network. Since there is no electrical processing in the entire transmission process, multiple transmission methods such as PDH, SDH, and ATM can be used, which improves the utilization rate of network resources.