Future prospects for optical transport networks beyond OADM ring network era

Stimulated by the e-Japan and u-Japan Strategies initiated in the early 2000´s, Japanese residents are now receiving the full benefits of a broadband network environment. As a result, the number of broadband access users has reached more than 30 million as of June 2009, and more than half of these users are FTTH users. Based on this rich broadband access infrastructure, the amount of Internet traffic is constantly increasing at approximately 40% per year. In this paper, we will describe future prospects of optical transport networks beyond the OADM ring network era based on this background.