Telecommunication Networks

6 Transmission Systems Architectures and Performances

6.1 Introduction

After a long period in which electronics switching was driving down prices while transmission via coaxial cables was costly and difficult, with the introduction of optical transmission in the early 1990s, the situation completely changed.

Although the end of the telecom market bubble (see Chapter 2) was followed by a big crisis influencing the market practically since 2001, it remains the fact that it is possible to transmit via optical fibers very high-capacity signals (like 100 channels at a speed of 10 Gbit/s each) at very long distances (in excess of 2000 km); transmission is today an abundant resource in the telecommunication networks while switching/routing remains ...