
greater ease of interoperability, through e.g., the exploitation of transparency
(signals remaining in the optical domain across the network), allowing wave-
lengths at the network edge to be dynamically aligned to another domain, or
support distributed control though the use of fast optical switches.
This chapter addresses some of the key optical functionalities of future optical
networks, rather than the detail of all the technology issues which are inevitable
part of any evolution. It is recognized that a number of functions, e.g., dispersion
compensation, are currently migrating to the electronic domain, but these topics are
not considered here. ...