Multilevel optical networks

The authors present MONET, a family of multilevel optical networks based on wavelength division multiplexing (WDM). MONET combines features of several existing WDM network architectures. The low level clusters are operated with time and wavelength division, and single-hop communications. These clusters are then interconnected with a multihop backbone. Additional wavelengths are also available on demand for real-time intercluster communications. It is shown that MONET, by combining the features of single- and multihop WDM schemes, can overcome some of their limitations. More precisely, it can support a much larger user population than single-hop schemes and can carry broadcast and real-time traffic more efficiently than multihop schemes.