Minimum cost optoelectronic networks: the optics/electronics tradeoff

A design model for optoelectronic networks based on DWDM technology is proposed. We give mathematical formulations for the logical layer design problem and for the wavelength assignment and routing problem. We study the tradeoff between optical cross-connects and electronic muxes that should be deployed in the various PoPs in order to minimize the cost of the network. We show that cost savings can he significant when we use both electronic muxes and optical cross-connects compared to the all-optical solution. We also show that the savings increase considerably with the traffic volume.