Fiber Optic Communication and

Networks (ECE4005)
Dr. Sangeetha R.G
Associate Professor
School of Electronics Engineering
(SENSE)

© Dr. Sangeetha R.G 1

Module :7 Optical Networks
Network concepts-Topologies SONET/SDH, The Optical Transport Network -
Introduction - OTN Network Layers - FEC in OTN - OTN Frame Structure - OPU-k -
ODU-k - OTU-k-The Optical Channel - Optical Channel Carrier and Optical Channel
Group - Optical Access Networks – PON - CWDM-PON, TDM-PON, Hybrid TDM-
WDM –PON, Metro Networks Long-Haul Networks

© Dr. Sangeetha R.G 2

Network Terminologies
 Some Terms
Topology – logical manner in which nodes linked
Switching – transfer of information from source to
destination via series of intermediate nodes;
Circuit Switching – Virtual circuit established
Packet Switching – Individual packets are directed
Switch – is the intermediate node that stream the
incoming information to the appropriate output
Routing – selection of such a suitable path
Router – translates the information from one
network to another when two different protocol
networks are connected (say ATM to Ethernet)
OSI & Layer Model
 Types of Networks
• Local Area Network (LAN)
– Interconnect users in a localized area: a
building, campus or enterprise
• Metropolitan Area Network (MAN)
• Wide Area Network (WAN)
– National, Regional
• Special Networks
– Undersea, Intercontinental…
 The Public Network

Long Haul Network

 Passive Optical Networks
Non Optical bus networks:
• Passive transmission medium
• Ability to install low perturbation (high impedance)
taps on the coaxial line without disrupting the
operating network.
Optical bus networks:
• In fiber-optic network, there are no low perturbation
optical tap equivalents
• Access to an optical data bus is using coupler – active /
passive
• Passive coupler does not use electronic elements
 Passive Optical Network
(PON) Topologies – BUS Topology

No O/E conversion Folded Bus, Tree and

Passive optical couplers Mesh Networks also exist
 Ring Topology
• Interface at each node being active device can recognize its own address in a data
packet in order to accept messages.
• If not for it, it forwards the message to next neighbour

Active devices
 Star Topology
• Central hub – active – control all routing of messages in the network from the
central node to the outlaying node.
• Central hub – passive - information exchange between attached stations. Power
splitter used to divide power to all stations.

Active / Passive
 Mesh Topology
• Mesh topology allows significant network configuration flexibility and
• Offers connection protection during multiple link / node failures

Nodes

Trunk Lines
 Add-Drop Bus-Coupler Losses

• Coupler has four functioning ports:

– Two for connecting the coupler onto the fiber bus
– One for receiving the tapped-off light
– One for inserting an optical signal onto the line after
the tap-off to keep the signal out of the local receiver
Performance of passive linear buses

• Losses encountered:
– Connector loss (Lc),
– Tap loss (Ltap),
– Throughput loss (Lth),
– Intrinsic loss and Fiber loss

• If a fraction Fc of optical power is lost at each port

of the coupler, then the connecting loss Lc is
Lc = -10log(1-Fc)
 Losses..
• If CT represent the fraction of power removed from the bus
and delivered to detector port, then the power extracted
from the bus is called tap loss,
Ltap = -10log CT
• For a symmetric coupler, CT also represents the fraction of
power coupled from transmitting input port to the bus. –
CTPo
• The power removed at the transmitting tap become unused
and is lost – throughput coupling loss. Lthru
Lthru = -10log(1-CT)2 = -20log(1-CT)
 Losses..
• An intrinsic transmission loss Li
associated with each bus coupler
Li = -10 log(1-Fi)
• Fiber attenuation between any two
adjacent stations are:
– Lfiber = -10 log AO = αL
Linear bus topology
Nearest-Neighbour Power Budget
•  
Largest-distance Power Budget
• Largest transmission distance occurs between stations 1 &
N.
• At the transmitting end, the fractional power coupled into
the first length of cable through the bus coupler at station 1
is:
• F1=(1-Fc)2CT(1-Fi)
• Similarly at station N the fraction of power from the bus-
coupler input port that emerges from the detector port is
• FN=(1-Fc)2CT(1-Fi)
•  
  Po 
10 log 
P   ( N  1) L  2 NLC  ( N  2) Lthru  2 LTAP  NLi
 L, N 

•  
 Example
Compare power budget of 3 linear buses that have 5, 10 & 50 stations
Loss factor Loss (dB) Losses for 5 Losses for 10 Losses for 50
stations stations stations
Source 1.0
connector
Coupling 2 x 10.0
(tap) loss
Coupler-to- 2(N-1)x1.0
fiber loss
Fiber loss (N-1)x0.2
Coupler (N-2)x0.9
throughput
Intrinsic Nx0.5
coupler loss
Receiver 1.0
connector
Total loss
 Star Network
•  
Liner Bus versus Star Network

The loss linearly increases with number of stations

in a Bus connection
Synchronous Optical Networks
• SONET is the TDM optical network
standard for North America (It is called
SDH in the rest of the world)
• We focus on the physical layer
• STS-1, Synchronous Transport Signal
consists of 810 bytes over 125 us
• 27 bytes carry overhead information
• Remaining 783 bytes: Synchronous
Payload Envelope
 SONET/SDH Bit Rates
SONET Bit Rate (Mbps) SDH
OC-1 51.84 -
OC-3 155.52 STM-1
OC-12 622.08 STM-4
OC-24 1244.16 STM-8
OC-48 2488.32 STM-16
OC-96 4976.64 STM-32
OC-192 9953.28 STM-64
 Digital Transmission Hierarchy
(T-Standards)

DS3

DS2

DS1
Predominant before optical era
Additional framing bits stuffed at each level to achieve
synchronization
Not possible to directly add/drop sub-channels
 Fig. 12-5: Basic STS-1 SONET frame

STS-1=(90*8bits/row)(9rows/frame) *125 s/frame  51.84 Mb/s

 Fig. 12-6: Basic STS-N SONET frame

STS-N signal has a bit rate equal to N times 51.84 Mb/s

Ex: STS-3  155.52 Mb/s
 SONET Add Drop Multiplexers

ADM is a fully synchronous, byte oriented device,

that can be used add/drop OC sub-channels
within an OC-N signal
Ex: OC-3 and OC-12 signals can be individually
added/dropped from an OC-48 carrier
 SONET/SDH Rings
• SONET/SDH are usually configured in
ring architecture to create loop diversity
• 2 or 4 fiber between nodes
• Unidirectional/bidirectional traffic flow
• Protection via line switching (entire OC-N
channel is moved) or path switching (sub
channel is moved)
2-Fiber Unidirectional Path Switched Ring

Node 1-2
OC-3
Node 2-4; OC-3

Ex: Total capacity OC-12 may be divided to

four OC-3 streams
2-Fiber UPSR
• Rx compares the
signals received
via the primary
and protection
paths and picks
the best one
• Constant
protection and
automatic
switching
 4-Fiber Bi-directional Line
Switched Ring (BLSR)

All secondary fiber left for protection

Node 13; 1p, 2p 31; 7p, 8p
 BLSR Fiber Fault Reconfiguration

In case of failure, the secondary fibers between

only the affected nodes (3 & 4) are used, the
other links remain unaffected
 BLSR Node Fault Reconfiguration

If both primary and secondary are cut, still the

connection is not lost, but both the primary and
secondary fibers of the entire ring is occupied
 Generic SONET network
Large National
City-wide Backbone

Local Area

Versatile SONET equipment

are available that support wide
range of configurations, bit rates
and protection schemes
 WDM Networks
• Single fiber transmits multiple
wavelengths  WDM Networks
• One entire wavelength (with all the data)
can be switched/routed
• This adds another dimension; the Optical
Layer
• Wavelength converters/cross connectors;
all optical networks
• Note protocol independence
 WDM Networks
• Broadcast and Select: employs passive
optical stars or buses for local networks
applications
– Single hop networks
– Multi hop networks
• Wavelength Routing: employs advanced
wavelength routing techniques
– Enable wavelength reuse
– Increases capacity
 WDM P-P Link

Several OC-192 signals can be carried,

each by one wavelength
 Single hop broadcast and select WDM

Star Bus

• Each Tx transmits at a different fixed wavelength

• Each receiver receives all the wavelengths, but selects
(decodes) only the desired wavelength
• Multicast or broadcast services are supported
• Dynamic coordination (tunable filters) is required
A Single-hop Multicast WDM Network
Multi-hop
Architecture

Four node broadcast and select multihop network

Each node transmits at fixed set of wavelengths
and receive fixed set of wavelengths
Multiple hops required depending on destination
Ex. Node1 to Node2: N1N3 (1), N3N2 (6)
No tunable filters required but throughput is less
 Fig. 12-17: Data packet

In multihop networks, the source and destination

information is embedded in the header
These packets may travel asynchronously
(Ex. ATM)
 Shuffle Net
Shuffle Net is one of
several possible
topologies in
multihop networks
N = (# of nodes) X
(per node)
Max. # of hops =
2(#of-columns) –1
A two column shuffle net
(-) Large # of ’s
Ex: Max. 2 X 2 - 1= 3 hops
(-) High splitting loss
 Wavelength Routing
• The limitation is
overcome by:
–  reuse,
–  routing and
–  conversion
• As long as the
logical paths
between nodes do
not overlap they can
use the same 
12X12 Optical Cross-Connect (OXC)
Architecture

This uses space

switching
 Optical Cross Connects (OXC)
• Works on the optical domain
• Can route high capacity wavelengths
• Space switches are controlled electronically
• Incoming wavelengths are routed either to
desired output (ports 1-8) or dropped (9-12)
• What happens when both incoming fibers
have a same wavelength? (contention)
• Try Ex. 12.5
Ex: 12.5: 4X4 Optical cross-connect

Wavelength switches are electronically configured

Wavelength conversion to avoid contention
Access Technologies for Metro
Networks
Access Technologies for long haul metro
networks
• The link between the service providers
and end users is often called last
mile/first mile
• Due to advances in photonic technologies
and deployment of fibers:
– 1 Tbps of capacity in core networks
(commercial)
– 10 Tbps in single fiber (state of the art)
 Access
Technologies
• With constantly increasing bandwidth
demand users may require more than
50Mbps in near future
• However the current copper wire
technologies have reached their fundamental
bandwidth limits
• Alleviating this bottle neck is the
challenging task
 Access
Technologies
• For broadband access services there is
strong competition among several
technologies:

– DSL(Digital Subscriber line), HFC (Hybrid Fiber Coaxial), wireless

and FTTx (fiber to the x, x stand for home, curb,
neighborhood, office, business, premise, user etc.)

– Currently, dominant broadband access technologies are

• DSL and HFC
 Digital Subscriber
Line
• DSL is a family of access technology -
utilize twisted-pair to provide broadband
services

• DSL takes advantage of the unused

bandwidth and

• Transmits data using multiple-

frequency channels
DS
L
 ADS
L
• ADSL is a form of DSL, a data communications technology
that
enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines

• ADSL is capable of providing up to 50 Mbps, and

supports voice, video and data.

• ADSL is the #1 Broadband Choice in the World with over

60% market share

• ADSL is now available in every region of the world

 What does ADSL
mean
• Asymmetric - The data can flow faster in one direction than
the other. Data transmission has faster downstream to the
subscriber than upstream

• Digital - No type of communication is transferred in an

analog method. All data is purely digital, and only at the
end, modulated to be carried over the line.

• Subscriber Line - The data is carried over a single twisted

pair copper loop to the subscriber premises
Optical Access Networks
 FTTH, FTTN, FTTB, FTTC,
FTTCab
• FTTH: Fiber To The Home
• FTTB: Fiber To The Building
• FTTC: Fiber To The Curb
• FTTCab: Fiber To The
Cabinet
• FTTM: Fiber To The Node

36
F IBE R TO T HE H OME

 Unlimited transmission rates

 Prices of both fiber a nd terminal equipm ent

are
competitive.
 FTTH is the Main alternative

 FTTH deployment in and Suburban

Urban become competitive.
37
W HAT IS FTTH?
 FTTH is the deployment of up to the Customer’s
OFC
 Premises.
FTTH means enormous bandwidth a t user’s disposal.
 FTTH is built over OAN (Optical Access Network)
 The Cen tra l Office poin t is called OLT (O p tical
Line Termination)
 The Custom er p rem ises is called ONU (O p tical
u n it Network Unit)
OAN
CO/HE
//

OLT ONT
38
F IBE R T O T HE P REMISES
Implement point-to-multipoint topology purely in
optics:
 But need a fiber (pair) to each end user
 requires 2 N optical transceivers
 complex an d costly to maintain

core N end users

39

access network
T HE P O N - S OLUTION
Another alternative -
 avoid costly optic-electronic conversions
 use passive splitters – no power needed, unlimited MTBF
 only N+1 optical transceivers (minimum possible) !

access network

1:2 passive

splitter
N end users
core
max defined
typically N=32
feeder fiber 128

40

1:4 passive splitter