Light-trail testbed for metro optical networks

— Telecommunication networks have rapidly added staggering amounts of capacity to their long haul networks at low costs per bit using DWDM technologies. Concurrently, there has been a wave of new access technologies that are driving customers to demand high-speed, robust and customized data services. These dynamics have led to what is called the ”metro gap” - the inability to leverage the backbone capacity to create and distribute revenue generating services. This paper presents work1 in progress at Iowa State Universities’ High Speed Systems Engineering laboratory to address the metro gap problem. As an initial step towards solving this problem, we demonstrate a streaming media application implemented utilizing Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) on a 3 Gbps optical fiber network employing light-trail technology [1]. The testbed and application presented within illustrates a cost-effective platform and outlines high-speed system level design challenges and solutions. This ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: TRIDENTCOM
• Authors: Nathan A. VanderHorn, Srivatsan Balasubramanian, Mani Mina, Robert J. Weber, Arun K. Somani
• Keywords: Long Haul Networks, Metro Gap Problem, Revenue Generating Services, TRIDENTCOM 2006