Perspectives of WDM technology in IP networking

Paksy Géza <paksy.geza@ln.matav.hu>

Matáv Rt. PKI Távközlésfejlesztési Intézet

Due to the synergy of IP based communications and the photonic technology significant improvements in available bandwidth and network performance can be expected in the near future.

Our lecture presents an overview of the latest results of photonic technology, their application in optical networking including the integration of IP with the optical network layer.

The wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) technology provides Terabit/s transmission capacity over a single fibre pair and the optical switching allows us to create an all-optical network layer, with wavelength add-drop, and routing functionality. This technology will be available in the Hungarian telecom networks, when the user demands reach this level.

This new optical layer provides transport services for ATM, SDH and IP client layers.

In the future the IP and WDM can form a two layer IPoverWDM network with a common, user controlled signalling layer for wavelength routing and IP traffic engineering. This new technology called MPLamdas can be the successor of the currently existing MPLS technology.

The lecture is closed by a brief overview of the emerging new standards and recommendations prepared by IETF, OIF and ITU.