THEORY OF SUBCARRIER ENCODING OF PACKET HEADERS IN QUASI-ALL-OPTICAL BROAD-BAND WDM NETWORKS

The problem of encoding and on-the-fly decoding of signaling informati on in quasi-all-optical WDM networks can be dealt with using multiple subcarrier signaling (MSS). This technique allows one to keep high-spe ed data in strictly all-optical form from the source node to the desti nation node. At intermediate nodes, only the signaling information is retrieved and utilized. In this paper, we present a detailed theoretic al analysis of the transmissive performance of MSS in a generic WDM ne twork environment and in the presence of optical amplification. Simple , but accurate, data and signaling information bit-error-rate expressi ons are derived as a function of the relevant network parameters, such as number of nodes, per node data rate, optical amplifiers characteri stics, packet length, and so forth. We outline a general transmissive performance analysis methodology and also present an example of its ap plication to a specific star network solution. MSS turns out to be cap able of supporting tens to hundreds of nodes at data speeds ranging fr om hundreds of Mb/s to several Gb/s.