Abstract (Optical Networking)

Today, every major industrialized center is linked to the rest of the world with fiber-optic cable, and the result is high-quality and low-cost bandwidth. Fiber serves at the building level in commercial and industrial centers, freeing them from the restrictions of copper cable and enabling broadband communications that connects entities with high-speed pipelines. Without fiber the Internet would be relegated to its origins of slow-speed connections between text-based computers. Internet, telecommuting, video conferencing, distance learning, and a host of other productivity-enhancing applications ride the fiber backbone. Fiber is the default method of linking LANs and it is a shortsighted organization that installs a campus backbone without providing fiber optics between the buildings.
Lightwave communications systems have applications in both private and public communications systems. The primary LEC and IXC applications ride on SONET/SDH. For noncarrier applications SONET/SDH is also available, as are FDDI, fiber channel, and LAN protocols. The following lists representative fiber applications:
-long-haul transmission systems
-intercontinental and undersea transmission systems
-trunking between local central offices
-metropolitan area backbone systems
-digital loop carrier feeder systems
-local area networks
-cable television backbone transmission systems
-private campus backbones
-interconnection of PBXs with remote switch units
-short-haul data transmission systems through noisy environments
-Fibre Channel for high-speed computer communications
-process automation in factories and industrial plants
-diagnostic image transmission in telemedicine applications
The high cost of right-of-way often stands in the way of private fiber-optic systems, but the advantages of this medium make it attractive for private applications. A major impediment to many applications is the common carriers’ refusal to offer dark fiber. Most common carriers offer to lease bandwidth in any increment, but where the application requires dark fiber, many decline to provide it except to other carriers. Nevertheless, as companies are able to obtain right-ofway, they can install fiber for countless applications.