Optical networking in North America - and its global implications

Summary form only given, as follows. Communications landscape has been changed in the last few years in North America. Data centric networks have been created to replace/complement classical transport networks based on SONET rings. The DWDM technology became widespread to provide very high capacity. Optical networking has emerged with core optical switching and convergence edge nodes to accommodate IP traffic over DWDM. The global intelligent optical networking vision has emerged.