How to build a petabit-per-second optical router

Abstract

Growth in the volume of Internet traffic increases the need for carriers to maximize the utilization of the telecommunications infrastructure. Packet switching provides traffic grooming at a sub-wavelength level and this is a significant factor in ensuring maximum utilization of network resources. In today's network, electronic routers provide this sub-wavelength grooming. To date, electronic routers have kept up with the demands of traffic growth. However there is some concern in the research community that the achievable capacity of the network will eventually be limited by traffic bottlenecks in electronic routers. Also of concern to some researchers is the growth in power consumption and..