Optical cross-connect

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An optical cross-connect (OXC) is a device used by telecommunications carriers to switch high-speed optical signals in a fiber optic network, such as an optical mesh network.

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In the 1980s, when transmission speeds supported by optical fibers increased from 45mb to 2.5gb, carrier networks developed and introduced digital cross connects to restore 64kb, 1.5mb, and 45mb traffic. [1]

There are several ways to realize an OXC:

An optical add-drop multiplexer (OADM) can be viewed as a special case of an OXC, where to node degree is two.

See also

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References

  1. Jackman, Neil A.; Patel, Sunita H.; Mikkelsen, Benny P.; Korotky, Steven K. (14 August 2002). "Optical cross connects for optical networking". Bell Labs Technical Journal. 4 (1): 262–281. doi:10.1002/bltj.2157.