Photonic highway: broad-band ring subscriber loops using optical signal processing

The introduction of optical signal processing technology into transmission systems and basic experiments with optical drop/insert using bistable laser diodes are discussed. With broadband integrated services digital network (B-ISDN) architecture and technology now under study, optical signal processing (OSP) is being considered to increase network capacity and flexibility. B-ISDN will require over 40 Gb/s in the feeder loop that connects the central office and remote terminals having drop/insert function. Remote terminals will process large amounts of high-speed data. An OSP-based broadband subscriber loop photonic highway that uses a ring architecture linking photonic access nodes (PANs) that directly process optical signals is proposed. Each PAN has an optical drop/insert function and can synchronize optical frame signals using a proposed optical sampling memory. Optical drop/insert experiments confirmed the feasibility of the proposed method.>