The evolution of China's optical fiber networks

With China having the world's fastest growing economy in the last decade, i ts demand for telecommunications is growing exponentially. Optical fiber-ba sed transport networks, serving as information superhighways, are essential for this sudden telecommunications expansion in China. This paper presents the historical evolution of China's optical fiber networks, their present status, and their future. We first review the journey that China has taken to build state-of-the-art fiber optic transport networks in the past 10 yea rs. Major milestones are covered, such as China's strategic decisions regar ding fiber selection, leapfrogging from plesiochronous digital hierarchy (P DH) to synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) and the transition from SDH to w avelength division multiplexing (WDM). This paper analyzes the present tran sport network architecture and the major issues that China is facing in nat ional network survivability and management strategy. We present a vision of China's optical transport networks going into the next century, which incl udes optical cross connect, optical access, and an Internet protocol (IP)-b ased optical network. We summarize with projections for China's optical fib er networks in the year 2000 and beyond.