27/02/02 4.1 Fibre Systems Applications Overview.

prz

Dublin Institute of Technology

School of Electronic and

Communications Engineering

Optical Communications Systems

Optical Fibre Applications

Dr. Gerald Farrell

Unauthorised usage or reproduction strictly prohibited

Copyright 2002, Dr. Gerald Farrell, Dublin Institute of Technology
 27/02/02 4.1 Fibre Systems Applications Overview.prz

Application Areas

The most common current applications are:

Public network trunk telecommunications links
Local area and Metropolitan area networks
Short range data transmission
Video transmission

The most promising emerging applications are:

Fibre to the home (FTTH)

Very high speed LANs (1 Gb/s +)
Unrepeatered ultra-long trunk undersea links
Optical interconnects

Optical Communications Systems, Dr. Gerald Farrell, School of Electronic and Communications Engineering
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 27/02/02 4.1 Fibre Systems Applications Overview.prz

Optical Fibre Transmission in

the Public Network

Fibre is now widely used in the trunk network

Almost all systems use singlemode fibre

Operating wavelengths are circa 1330 nm and 1550 nm

Bit rates per fibre are routinely 2.5 Gbits/sec or higher

Optical Communications Systems, Dr. Gerald Farrell, School of Electronic and Communications Engineering
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 27/02/02 4.1 Fibre Systems Applications Overview.prz

Standard Bit Rates

Bit rates have been standardised for:

Sonet: Synchronous optical network (US)
SDH: Synchronous Digital Hierarchy

OC-x bit rates are a US designation, STM-x bit rates are international

Designation Bit rate Voice Channels

OC-1 51.84 Mb/s 672

OC-3 or STM-1 155.52 Mb/s 2016
OC-9 466.56 Mb/s 6048
OC-12 or STM-4 622.28 Mb/s 8064
OC-18 933.12 Mb/s 12,096
OC-24 1.244 Gb/s 16,128
OC-36 1.866 Gb/s 24,192
OC-48 or STM-16 2.488 Gb/s 32,256
OC-96 4.976 Gb/s 64,512
OC-192 or STM-64 9.953 Gb/s 129,024

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 27/02/02 4.1 Fibre Systems Applications Overview.prz

Optical Fibre Networks in

Ireland

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 27/02/02 4.1 Fibre Systems Applications Overview.prz

Irish Fibre Network

March 1999
Fibre is now the standard for long distance
trunk links

Companies with fibre networks include:

Eircom
Esat Telecom
Worldwide Telecom
Ocean
Cablelink

Also used in so-called "Metropolitan

Systems" within large urban areas

Most systems operate at 2.5 Gbits/s

(equivalent to more that 32,000 telephone
systems)

Several undersea links to the U.K.

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Eircom
Fibre Network

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Eircoms use of Fibre

Cumulative installed fibre kms was 55,000 at the end of 1998

Growth to 95,000 fibre kms by the end of 1999
As of January 1999, 98% of the trunk network is fibre
Three undersea links to the UK and Transatlantic cables:
Portmarnock to Holyhead (BT-TE 1)
Kilmore Quay to Lands End (Celtic Cable)
Kilmore Quay to Oxwich Bay in the UK (Solas Cable)
Cross border links also in place
Dense WDM to be deployed with a capacity of 16-40 times 2.5
Gbits/sec

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Esat Telecom
Fibre Network

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ESAT Telecom's use of Fibre

Cumulative installed fibre kms was 125,000 by mid-1999.

1200 km of trunk cable and 200 km of metro cable by mid-1999
100% of the network is fibre.
Two undersea links to the UK and Transatlantic cables:
Wexford to Land's End (ESAT-1)
Dublin to Southport (ESAT-2)
Local/city networks as metropolitan rings in cities:
Dublin
Cork
Waterford
Limerick
Galway
Shannon

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ESAT Telecom's Trunk Network

Links 30 of the largest towns/cities

Constructed along CIE's rail network

Links to UK cables

Operates at 2.5 Gbits/sec (STM-16)

Upgrade using DWDM is underway

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Optical Fibre
LAN
Applications

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Fibre in Local Area Networks

Second only to public network use in popularity

Fibre is a broadband LAN medium, allowing longer distances and

higher bit rates

Fibre restricts the choice of LAN topology because equivalent

optical component loss is higher

One of the most successful fibre based LANs is the so called Fibre
Distributed Data Interface or FDDI.

Future fibre LANs will operate at 1 Gbit/s and higher

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 27/02/02 4.1 Fibre Systems Applications Overview.prz

Applications for Fibre in

Buildings

Horizontal Cabling

Building Backbone

Most fibre is used in

campus and building
backbones
Horizontal cabling is
mainly copper at
present but may
become fibre

Campus Backbone
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Optical LAN
Topology
Issues
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Network Topology Problems

In a copper based network such as a bus network simple BNC T pieces can be used
Allows for a relatively large number of nodes or computers
The closest equivalent for optical fibre is an "optical splitter"
But loss of optical power in the splitter can reduce the number of nodes to < 10
Networks based on optical fibre must use different topologies

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Common LAN Topologies

Star Network Ring network
6 6
1 5
1 5

Star Hub

2 4
4
2

3
3

Bus Network

Passive 1 2 3 4 5 6
Cable

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Physical Cabling Structures

Ring network
Physically cabling is always much more complex
than a simple point-to-point link 6

Cabling is installed in a variety of ways or 1 5

topologies
Fibre link
Typical example is a ring network
4
2
Each fibre link on its own is a simple point-
to-point link
3
But from a network perspective the system is
configured as a ring network

In buildings patch panels allow the collection of Network

fibre links to be configured in different ways Nodes

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Fibre Distributed Data Interface

Major Attributes
Most successful fibre LAN technology
Active ring based LAN
100 Mb/sec data rate
Allowed total fibre length is 200 Km
Maximum number of nodes is 500
Up to 2 km between nodes
Dual counterrotating ring structure
Built in failure protection
Highly standardised

Optical Communications Systems, Dr. Gerald Farrell, School of Electronic and Communications Engineering
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Optical aspects of FDDI

Operates at 1330 nm, for low dispersion

Uses LEDs as sources
Five multimode fibre specs approved
Primary fibre recommended is 62.5/125 µm
Fibre loss to be less than 2.5 dB/km
Power budget over 2 Km is 11 dB

Laser based version / single mode fibre soon?

60 - 100 Km between nodes?

Optical Communications Systems, Dr. Gerald Farrell, School of Electronic and Communications Engineering
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Fibre Distributed Data Interface

Bus LAN
Gateway Gateway

Wiring
Concentrator
Ring FDDI Backbone Network
LAN

Gateway Computer

Tape Drives
Bus LAN Disk Arrays Workstations

Optical Communications Systems, Dr. Gerald Farrell, School of Electronic and Communications Engineering
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