The evolution of optical systems: Optics everywhere

With the explosion of capacity demands driven by the Internet, optical netw orking systems are experiencing tremendous growth and are providing increas ingly high transmission capacities. As importantly with the advent of the o ptical amplifier and wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) optics is playi ng a larger role in networking and is extending further to the edge of the network. Once limited to long-haul point-to-point systems, Lucent Technolog ies is now commercializing multipoint metro WDM ring systems that include s oftware-controlled optical wavelength add/drop multiplexers and soon will o ffer large optical cross connects. These optical network elements, together with network management software, will enable rapid provisioning of wavele ngth services, as well as rapid network restoration. In addition, as the co st of optics is driven down and the demand for bandwidth to businesses and residential customers continues to grow, optical systems are extending out from the network core and metro to access applications. The confluence of a proliferation of broadband service applications and rapidly maturing optic al technology are literally driving optical systems into all segments. Incr easingly, optics is literally everywhere.