THE DESIGN OF A EUROPEAN OPTICAL NETWORK

This paper presents a number of design issues under consideration in t he development of an all-optical network linking major centers in Euro pe. The proposed network is characterized by spanning a large geograph ical area, the diameter is in excess of 3000 km, but with a relatively small number of nodes (20). The study combines aspects of two optical network projects funded by the European Commission: COST 239-Ultra-Hi gh Capacity Optical Transmission Networks and RACE 2028: Multi-Wavelen gth Transport Network. The network uses multiwavelength technology and combines wavelength selection and space switching to achieve signal r outing. One of the objectives of the study is to understand the extent to which transparency can be achieved in such a large network. For ex ample the effect of using amplifiers to achieve transparency is to pro vide extremely long fiber paths in which non-linear effects may become significant and effectively limit the number of wavelengths that can be employed; this limit may be at conflict with the number of waveleng ths required from a traffic viewpoint. The paper therefore considers c apacity requirements, transmission limitations and node and network ar chitecture issues. It is concluded that partitioning of the network ma y be necessary to maximize transparency and suggestions are made as to how this might be achieved.