Autonomous Timing Determination in a Time-Slotted WDM All-Optical Network

There are several network services provided by the 20 wavelength all-optical network (AON) testbed deployed in the Boston metropolitan area[ 11 by the Consortium on Wideband All- Optical Networks. One is a scheduled time and wavelength division multiplexed service which supports multiple simultaneous and independently optically routed connections for users with data rates variable from -10 Mbps to 1.244 Gbps. A key feature of this T D W M service is the time-slot synchronization required for the efficient use of network resources, especially when data is transmitted in short high-rate bursts or time-slots. We demonstrate autonomous transmitter/receiver synchronization over a metropolitan area testbed. This allows signals from widely distributed sources to mesh without collision on common a wavelength at a common fiber, router or other time-shared network resource.