Optical rings appear to be well-positioned to serve as the transport network for the next generation of voice and data networks. The problem of designing optical ring networks has received considerable attention in the literature. However, most of this work has focussed on minimizing the capital equipment cost and less attention has been paid to the extremely important operational cost issues. We consider optical ring designs with and without the flexibility of automatically reconfiguring the optical rings and the traffic they carry. Reconfigurability of the transport network is extremely valuable in dealing, cost effectively, with the tremendous growth and churn that is being witnessed in today's service networks. However, it has an associated higher equipment cost and a service-provider has to weigh the additional initial capital cost against the reduced recurring operational costs associated with managing and operating the network. We describe mathematical tools we have developed to carry out optical ring designs with and without reconfigurability. We also provide sample numerical results.
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