The value of wavelength reconfigurability and switching in optimizing the transport Layer for Packet Traffic

Global telecommunication network traffic has continued to grow exponentially. This growth places increased emphasis in the scaleable optical transport architectures that would interconnect ("logical mesh") multiple nodes, through a "physical" fiber plant often extending to hundreds of km in the metro and thousands in national backbones. A converged WDM network, where IP/Ethernet services and traditional TDM traffic operate over a common intelligent optical transport layer, has increasingly become the most attractive architecture addressing the needs of network operators for significantly reduced capital and operational cost. The paper discusses the importance of wavelength reconfigurability and switching in optimizing transport layer for packet traffic in optical communication.