Exploring the effects of physical layer parameters in WDM based fixed and flexible-grid networks

We focus on the design of the logical layer on an optical infrastructure for three different architectures: fixed grid WDM with fixed-rate multilevel modulation (WDM-FRMF), fixed grid WDM with time-domain hybrid modulation formats (WDM-TDHFM) and flexible grid (FG). A fairly detailed physical layer modeling is considered in the network design algorithms. Simulations are performed on a 20 nodes network with varying traffic loads. Besides comparing the two paradigms of flexible and fixed grid networks, including both pure and hybrid modulation formats, in terms of their spectral efficiency and number of blocked requests, we show the importance of integrating a detailed physical layer modeling in the network design phase. We mostly focus on the investigation of the impact of changing physical layer design parameters such as fiber type and span length on network level performance.