Optical cross-connect system technology trial

Summary form only given. In an effort to integrate existing network equipment and fiber plant with new technology and to characterize its affect on network applications, MCI deployed an optical cross-connect system (OCCS) technology trial in its network. This network consists of five separate 16/spl times/16 OCCS nodes, OC-48 and OC-192 transport equipment, optical amplifiers, wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM), and a WAN control network. Two logical configurations were tested: optical ring and mesh. Restoration routes from 50-350 km were implemented utilizing nondispersion-shifted and long-span fiber types.