Broadband Internet Access using Gigabit Ethernet over Wavelength-Division Multiplexing (WDM) Networks

The popularity of the Internet leads to an increasing number of emerging applications operating with the corresponding Internet protocol (IP). High bandwidth transmission over Internet links is one building block to provide audio & video applications apart from common data transport over the Internet protocol, thus enabling applications like computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW). While these applications may mainly be found in business and university area, new initiatives like the Canadian initiative \Gigabit Internet to every Canadian Home by 2005" [1] may encompass to an ever increasing demand even for home access. By extrapolating the demand for the future the need for multiples of nowaday's network capacities is expected. One method for providing high bandwidth on the physical layer is using optical networks and among these in particular those employing wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM). WDM proves to be economical as existing ber capacity can be extended without requiring the installation of additional ber. Moreover WDM equipment (like ampli ers) operates on aggregated bandwidth (i.e. the multiplexed WDM channels) simultaneously. There are several layers possible combining IP and WDM for high speeds, among these ATM, SDH/SONET, Frame Relay, Gigabit Ethernet and some proprietary solutions. This paper focuses on the transmission of IP over Gigabit Ethernet over WDM, with Gigabit Ethernet providing a cost-e ective alternative for IP over WDM. The paper is organized as follows. In section 2 relevant aspects concerning Gigabit Ethernet are given and section 3 describes generic network architectures.