Short term strategies for carrier class IP over optics network

Long-distance IP networks are becoming the universal infrastructure to carry all the communication services. Having these services different assurance requirements, in terms of availability and serve-ability, IP networks must offer both carrier-class and lower quality availability levels. This paper investigates possible strategies that allow reaching these goals, specifically analyzing the cost/benefit ratio of each strategy. In doing that we pay attention to solutions that can be applied to present state-of-the art IP over Optics networks.