Scalability of optical multiwavelength switching networks: power budget analysis

The scalability of multiwavelength switching networks with respect to bit rate, number of wavelength channels per fiber, and number of inputs/outputs per optical node is examined. High bit rates will require use of dispersion compensation, a large number of channels per fiber will require low-loss wavelength demultiplexing and multiplexing, and many input/output fibers per node will require corresponding large space switching stages. These requirements implemented at the same time seem feasible from the power budget point of view to give networks with very high data capacity (3000 Tb/s·km). The limits considered here are those imposed by optical noise accumulation, static and dynamic gain saturation in the optical amplifiers, and dispersion in the transmission fibers