Automatically Switched Optical Networks: Their Evolution, Applications and Challenges

摘要

The concept of Automatically Switched Optical Networks (ASONs) has been around for a while now. However, despite a variety of test-bed demonstrations the wide spread commercial deployment of ASONs still remains a 'future option'. A brief review of the concept of and motivation for ASONs is presented and then some key issues that must be addressed before a Telecommunications Carrier (telco) would seriously consider deploying an ASON, are discussed. Several areas of current research being undertaken at the Telstra Research Laboratories will be covered. This article is a revised version of a paper originally presented to the Australian Telecommunications Networks and Applications Conference (ATNAC) held in Sydney in December 2004.