Multiwavelength optical network activities in the US

Summary form only given, as follows. Wavelength-division-multiplexed (WDM) transmission systems, made economically viable by the fiber amplifier, are now being deployed in the United States by both local and long distance service providers. While initial deployment has been justified solely by the increased capacity needs of point-to-point links that use embedded, standard fiber, WDM also offers the potential of high-level transport networking functions including wavelength add/drop and cross-connection to provide rapid restoration, service provisioning and reconfigurable private networks. This talk reviews the efforts in the US to evaluate the value and economic and technical viability of such optical networks with particular emphasis on the Multiwavelength Optical Networking (MONET) consortium project.