Future all-optical networks

Lightwave technology has played a key role in data communications because of its capacity for high data rate transmission over long distances. Current optical networks are migrating to wavelength division multiplexing (WDM)-based fiber transport. Another transport technology optical time division multiplexing (OTDM) has attracted much attention for decades. These two technologies, WDM and OTDM, are discussed. Finally, we also introduce our research efforts at the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT) on 4x10 Gbit/s OTDM transmission systems.