Building the Next-Generation Packet-Optical
Switching Network
Network operators all over the world are facing the same
fundamental dilemma – traffic growth is outpacing their
revenue growth. To avoid financial disaster they must lower
the capital and operational costs associated with
transporting bits, increase the revenue derived from those
bits, or some combination of the two. To meet these needs,
operators are entering a new phase of the Sonet/SDH-to-
packet network migration. It will require new optical
networking architectures and new technologies that must
achieve the following:
• Improve transport costs
• Accommodate existing services
• Enable new services
• Deliver operational simplicity
• Provide deterministic performance and resilience
This new phase of evolution will yield innovations in
optical switching while more tightly coupling both transport
and switching. This white paper details the main
shortcomings of current optical networking architectures
and the features and functionality needed for the next-
generation switching and transport network.
Written by: Heavy Reading
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