IMPACT OF POLARIZATION MODE DISPERSION IN MULTI-HOP MULTI-RATE WDM RINGS

摘要

Fiber Polarization Mode Dispersion (PMD) is perhaps the most critical transmission impairment in optical networks with transmission rates of 10 Gb/s and higher. Since the bandwidth-distance product, or transparency, of the optical channel is limited by PMD, the overall network design and cost may be significantly altered by the actual fiber PMD values. The paper has two objectives. First, to quantify how PMD may increase the cost of WDM rings in a number of design scenarios, including first generation, single-hop, multi-hop, and multi-rate networking. Second, the polynomial-time algorithm proposed in [3] is modified to provide sub-optimal solutions for the above WDM rings, that take into account the limited bandwidth-distance product imposed by PMD. Presented results reveal that for high transmission rates, the cost of the multi-hop ring is less affected by PMD than the costs of first generation and single-hop rings.