Abstract

Optical ring networks are quite useful for interconnecting many network nodes. However, when the signal tapping loss at each node is combined with fiber-attenuation and component-insertion losses (~4 dB), the number of 2.5-Gbit/s nodes in a typical ring is limited to <6. Optical amplifiers [i.e., erbium- doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs)] must be incorporated to compensate for these losses. Additionally, the network capacity is significantly enhanced by transmitting many wavelength-division-multiplexed (WDM) channels.^1-3 However, incorporating WDM into an amplified ring is complicated by the wavelength dependence of the EDFA gain.

© 1994 Optical Society of America