A New Protocol for Optical High-Speed Packet-Switched Networks

摘要

A new media access protocol for optical high-speed packet-switched networks is proposed. The protocol is based on a broadcast passive optical star coupler topology. The strength of the protocol is its simplicity. The protocol supports a network architecture consisting of tunable transmitters and tunable receivers. Each station has a data channel and a control/signalling channel. The data channel wavelength is unique to each station while several stations can share a common control channel wavelength. Both connection-oriented and datagram traffic can be supported by this protocol. No network wide synchronization is required and hence it is suitable to LAN/MAN applications in which it is extremely difficult to achieve network synchronization. Analysis of the proposed protocol is presented.