Global standards for automatically switched optical networks enable new market services

27 March 2002 News

New global standards for Automatically Switched Optical Networks (ASON) and their control mechanisms have been adopted as a result of an aggressive work programme initiated by ITU to support bandwidth-on-demand applications. The standards add switching capability to the installed optical fibre infrastructure.

ASON control mechanisms provide support for both switched wavelength and sub-wavelength connection services in transport networks to provide bandwidth on-demand. Wavelength connection services make use of an entire wavelength of light while sub-wavelength services use a channel within a wavelength.

The ASON control mechanisms also enable fast optical restoration. Traditionally, transport networks have used protection rather than restoration to provide reliability for connections. With protection, connections are moved to dedicated or shared routes in the event of a failure of a fibre or network equipment. With restoration, the endpoints can 'redial' to re-establish the connection through an alternative route as soon as a loss of the original connection is detected.

Restoration is a defined advantage for carriers as it makes better use of the network capacity and, with this new standard, it can be performed much faster than with most proprietary restoration systems available today.

www.itu.int

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