Design of a cross-border optical core and access networking field trial: First outcomes of the ACTS-PELICAN project

A large advanced optical network was assembled and operated in the field, f eaturing access, metropolitan, and core optical networks with advanced func tionality and technology in all parts of the network. It demonstrates the r eliability and viability of photonic technologies and management functions in a trial representative of a global network infrastructure. The core network is a transparent all-optical meshed network with wavelengt h crossconnects partly 2R-regenerating, operating at 2.5 and 10 Gb/s, and s upporting various protection schemes including 1 : N shared OCH protection, The metropolitan network is a ring composed of OADMs supporting OMS protec tion. The interconnection to the SuperPON access network is made through an ATM switch. The ATM-based SuperPON supports a dynamic Medium Access Contro l (MAC) protocol. For the first time, a 10 Gb/s wavelength-converted connection was demonstra ted in the field in a transparent all-optical managed network. The held tri al has demonstrated many points of progress as compared to the previous sta te of the art: cascadability experiments in a real network with reasonable distances and low compensation, various node functions, interworking of var ious equipment types, new optical protection, and dynamic MAC protocol. The (transport) TMN/Q3 integrated management system played an important role t o achieve the network experiments: it allowed us to provision and reconfigu re the end-to-end optical paths very quickly (<3 s) from the centralized ma nagement platform. This trial is also the first one representative of an advanced global optic al network infrastructure including core, metro, and access networks, suppo rting end-to-end multimedia services. This article reports the project resu lts before the held deployment which took place in April 2000.