Managed reach optical networks

Traffic growth for Internet applications will likely dominate long-distance networks in the foreseeable future, which presents opportunities for new optical layer approaches that are tailored to Internet traffic characteristics. One important difference between the traffic patterns generated by Internet applications is that the Internet connections on average are significantly longer than the conventional voice connections, which allows for network cost savings by combining long reach transport with optical switching technologies to route and manage those connections. Fortunately there is an industry-wide effort to create the required technology for such a managed reach optical layer. The value of the optical layer will be more effectively achieved as reach lengths increase to match Internet traffic needs.