Communication network needs and technologies-a place for photonic switching?

Projects the potential for photonic switching and control in networks by reviewing historic trends in technology and system development, analyzing application needs as a source of requirements on the technologies, and characterizing the limitations of competing electronic and photonic technologies for performing these functions. The author concludes that `all optical´ switching systems concepts are in their infancy and are one to two decades away from any real usage. Such optical structures will by then most likely involve radically different concepts from electronic switches, as opposed to being photonic analogs of switching elements. Deployment of more limited application photonic subsystems in hybrid electrooptical structures are, however, distinct possibilities in earlier time frames