Abstract

Three signaling schemes are analyzed for an all-optical multiswitch high-speed network implementation that uses burst switching (i.e., connections are established only for the duration of a data burst). Figure 1 shows a representative three-switch network. The throughput and the delay are determined for each scheme, and comparisons are made. This investigation is of interest because important characteristics of all-optical very-high-speed networks were not considered in the design of many existing signaling protocols: the propagation delay is comparable to or may exceed the burst transmission time, and optical buffers are not currently practical.

© 1995 Optical Society of America