FIBER OPTICS AND NETWORKS

15EC82
MODULE 5 : OPTICAL NETWORKS
OVERVIEW

• Synchronous networks
• Asynchronous networks
• Open Systems Interconnection reference model
OPTICAL NETWORK TRANSMISSION MODES,
LAYERS AND PROTOCOLS

 The end points of the optical network usually comprise network nodes
and network stations.
 The nodes connect the fibers within the optical network while the
stations connect the optical network to the non optical systems in the
electronic domain.
 The nodes also provide functions that control the optical signals
whereas the stations provide the terminating points for the optical
signal.
 The stations and nodes therefore comprise both optoelectronic and
photonic components.
 Therefore this practical scenario dictates the use of a combination of
both optical and electronic domains where various devices are required
to communicate with each other in order to establish a connection for
transmission between different segments of the optical network.
 In order to establish useful communication among different
network elements of the same or other networks it is necessary to
employ certain physical network structures, transmission types,
rules and protocols which make networking implementation
more
straightforward and also allow the optical network to be
upgraded with new developments and to follow improved service
trends.
SYNCHRONOUS NETWORKS
 In this multiplexing strategy, which is currently adopted
throughout the world, each 2 Mbit/s transmission circuit has its
own independent clock to provide for timing and synchronization.
 This results in slightly different frequencies occurring throughout a
network and is referred to as pleisochronous* transmission.
 a major drawback extra bits need to be inserted (bit stuffing) at
each intermediate level so as to maintain pleisochronous operation.
 The presence of bit stuffing in the existing pleisochronous digital
hierarchy (PDH) makes it virtually impossible to identify and
extract an individual channel from within a high-bit-rate
transmission link . Thus to obtain an individual channel the whole
demultiplexing procedure through the various levels must be
carried out.
 By the mid-1980s the lack of standards for optical networks
had led to a proliferation of proprietary interfaces where
transmission systems produced by one manufacturer would not
necessarily interconnect with those from any other
manufacturer such that the ability to mix and match different
equipment was restricted.
 Hence standardization towards a synchronous optical network
termed SONET commenced in the United States in 1985
 The ITU-T (formerly CCITT) began deliberation of the SONET
concepts in 1986 which resulted in basic recommendations for a
new synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) in November 1988.
 Hence the synchronous optical network recommendations tend to
be referred to as SONET in North America and SDH in Europe.
 The SONET standard as ultimately developed by ANSI defines a
digital hierarchy with a base rate of 51.840 Mbit s−1, as shown in
Table 15.1.
 The OC notation refers to the optical carrier level signal. Hence the
base rate signal is OC-1.
 The STS level in brackets refers to a corresponding synchronous
transport signal from which the optical carrier signal is obtained
after scrambling and electrical to optical conversion.*
 STS-1 is the basic building block of the SONET signal hierarchy.
 The STS-1 frame structure shown in Figure is precisely 125 μs
and hence there are 8000 frames per second.
 This structure enables digital voice signal transport at 64 kbit/s.
 The basic STS-1 frame structure illustrated in Figure comprises nine
rows, each of 90 bytes, which therefore provide a total of 810 bytes
or 6480 bits per 125 μs frame. This results in the 51.840 Mbit s−1
base rate.
 The first 3 bytes in each row of the STS-1 frame contain transport
overhead bytes, leaving the remaining 783 bytes to be designated as
the synchronous payload envelope (SPE).
 Apart from the first column (9 bytes) which is used for the path
overhead, the remaining 774 bytes in the SPE constitute the SONET
data payload.
 The transport overhead bytes are utilized for functions such as
framing, scrambling, error monitoring, synchronization
and multiplexing while the path overhead within the SPE is used to
provide end-to-end communication between systems carrying digital
voice, video and other signals which are to be multiplexed onto the
STS-1 signal .
 The STS-1 SPE does not have to be contained within a single
frame; it may commence in one frame and end in another.
 A ‘payload pointer’ within the transport overhead is employed to
designate the beginning of the SPE within that frame.
 Moreover, to accommodate sub-STS-1 signal rates a virtual
tributary (VT) structure is defined
comprising four rates: 1.728 Mbit s−1 (VT 1.5); 2.304 Mbit s−1
(VT 2); 3.456 Mbit s−1 (VT 3);
and 6.912 Mbit s−1 (VT 6).
• In this case the transport overhead bytes of each STS-1 are frame aligned to create
the 3N bytes of transport overhead, which is illustrated in Figure 15.11.

• However, the SPEs do not require alignment since the service payload pointers
within the associated transport overhead bytes provide the location for the
appropriate SPEs
 The synchronous digital hierarchy, as defined by the ITU-T ,
operates in the same manner as described above but differs in
some of its terminology .

 In this case the 125 μs frame structure is referred to as a

synchronous transport module (STM) and the base rate STM-1 is
155.520 Mbit/S which corresponds to OC-3 (STS-3),
 As a further development in STM the available bandwidth can be
reallocated to the users according to their requirements. This is
known as dynamic synchronous transfer mode (DSTM), which
employs circuit switching since it is the combination of optical
switching and transport technology as recommended by the
European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ESTI) .
 Dynamic synchronous transfer mode is a time division
multiplexing strategy where the time slots are divided into control
and data slots.
 The control slots are used for signaling purposes and are statically
allocated to a node, whereas the data slots are assigned
dynamically for the user of the data transmission.
ASYNCHRONOUS TRANSFER MODE
Asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) is a packetized multiplexing and switching
technique which seeks to combine the benefits of packet switching and circuit
switching.

Asynchronous transfer mode transfers information in fixed size units called cells where
each cell contains the information identifying the source of the transmission but which
generally contain less data than packets.
 An ATM cell comprises a header and payload data as shown in
Figure 15.12. It contains 48 bytes of data with 5 bytes of header
information.
 Each single byte in the header field includes different
information to identify destination, path, channel and the error
control bits. Before sending ATM cells carrying user data, a
virtual connection between source and destination has to be
established.
 All connections follow the same path within the network.

 During the connection setup each control bit (1 or 0) generates

an entry in the virtual path identifier (or virtual channel
identifier) translation table to inform the destination to receive
the incoming packet
OPEN SYSTEMS INTERCONNECTION
REFERENCE MODEL
 The application layer which sits at the top of the hierarchy as
the seventh layer provides a means for a user to access
information on or utilize the network by receiving a service
(e.g. database management, network management).
 This layer is the main interface for the users to interact through
applications with the network.
 The sixth level is the presentation layer which transforms data
to provide a standard interface for the application layer.
 The session layer controls the dialogs (sessions) between
intelligent devices.
 Furthermore, it establishes, manages and terminates the
connections between the local and remote application.
 It also provides for either duplex or half-duplex operation and
establishes check pointing, adjournment, termination and restart
procedures.
 The fourth level is the transport layer which provides
transparent transfer of data between end users, thus relieving
the upper layers from any transport concern while providing
reliable data transfer.
 The transport layer controls the reliability of a specific link
through flow control, segmentation/desegmentation and error
control.
 This means that the transport layer can keep track of the
packets and retransmit those that fail.
 The network layer at the third level provides the functional and
procedural method for
transferring variable length data sequences from a source to a
destination via one or more
networks while maintaining the quality of service requested by
the transport layer.
 The network layer performs network routing functions, and
might also perform segmentation/ desegmentation and report on
delivery errors.
 The data link layer provides the functional and procedural
mechanisms to enable transfer of data between network entities
and to detect, and potentially correct, errors that may occur in
the physical layer.
 It is the layer at which network bridges and switches operate
and that connectivity is provided among locally attached
network nodes forming layer 2 domains for unicast or broadcast
forwarding.
 The physical layer (PHY) is located at the bottom of the OSI
reference model hierarchy and it defines all the electrical, optical
and physical media specifications for devices
(e.g. the fiber type, cable specifications, hubs, repeaters, network
adaptors).
 It both establishes and terminates a connection to the
communications medium.
 Furthermore, it also ensures that communication resources are
effectively shared among multiple users
Thank you.......