Optical time division multiplexing for high capacity transmission

Future networks operating in excess of 10 Gbit/s are likely to require optical multiplexing to obtain such high capacities, linking major nodes in the inland network. The implementation of optical fibre amplifiers instead of optoelectronic regenerators would future-proof the transmission fabric, permitting capacity upgrades through modifications to terminal equipment. Optical nonlinearity will form an ultimate limit to the capacity of simple wavelength-division multiplexed systems. In the longer term, upgrading to an optical time division multiplexed (OTDM) super-trunk network would provide a core transport layer of very high capacity so that services requiring large bandwidth on demand could be enabled. The authors survey the current status of OTDM systems.