Optical Networks, 3rd Edition

Preface to the First Edition

Fiber optics has become the core of our telecommunications and data networking infrastructures. Optical fiber is the preferred means of transmission for any data over a few tens of megabits per second and over anything from a kilometer and upwards. The first generation of fiber optic networks used optical fiber predominantly as a replacement for copper cable for transmission at higher bit rates over longer distances. The second generation of fiber optic networks is just emerging. These networks really exploit the capacity of fiber to achieve overall transmission capacities of several tens of gigabits per second to terabits per second. Moreover, they exploit routing and switching of signals in the optical domain. The ...