Multicast-capable optical code label switching and its experimental demonstration

• Published in: Journal of lightwave technology Vol. 24; no. 2; pp. 713 - 722
• Main Authors: Yoshima, S., Onohara, K., Naoya Wada, Kubota, F., Kitayama, K.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.02.2006; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Coding, codes; Exact sciences and technology; Information, signal and communications theory; Labels; Multicast; Multiplexing; Operation, maintenance, reliability; optical code; Optical devices; Optical fiber networks; Optical modulation; Optical packet switching; Optical switches; packet switching; Scalability; Signal and communications theory; Switches; Switching; Switching and signalling; Switching theory; Systems, networks and services of telecommunications; Tables (data); Telecommunications; Telecommunications and information theory; Ultrafast optics; Videoconference; Wavelength division multiplexing; Wavelengths; WDM networks; Packet switching; Scalability; Networking; Optical telecommunication; Wavelength division multiplexing; Routing; Data broadcast; Information dissemination; Implementation; optical code; Multicast; Coding; Optical switching; Optical fiber communication; Reconfigurable architectures; Optical switch; Matrix circuit
• ISSN: 0733-8724; 1558-2213
• DOI: 10.1109/JLT.2005.862443

Optical multicasting employing wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) has a problem with scalability, because the number of multicast members may surpass the number of available wavelength paths. In contrast to the conventional connection-oriented approach, this paper proposes optical code (OC) label switching for multicast networking and experimentally demonstrates this approach. The enabling components are an OC label, on which multicast group information is mapped, and a multicast routing table implemented with a reconfigurable optical matrix switch. This approach mitigates the scarcity of wavelength resources, thus, providing scalable optical multicast networking.