Evaluation of wavelength congestion in transparent optical transport networks

Abstract

Transparent Optical networks are generally regarded as a possible solution for the provisioning of ultrahigh speed transmission and switching capabilities to accommodate bandwidth hungry applications and services. Most of such applications and services involve streaming of high-definition video. However, since al source and destination pair establishments within a given Transparent optical transport network are assumed to be within optical signal reach, such networks do not incorporate regenerators. The lack of regenerators often leads to a serious degradation of the signal to noise ratio as a result of the effects of physical layer impairments accumulated as it traverses the network. This motivates us to propose and present a Q-factor tool that takes into account the various physical layer impairments. The proposed tool’s efficacy is evaluated by way of simulation.