Tunable filter based reconfigurable optical network

Summary form only given. Reconfigurable optical add/drop (ROADM) is one of the most important topics for today's optical network, for the ROADM subsystem provides the node with the highest flexibility. Flexibility is defined as the ability to change the disposition of a wavelength from add, drop, or pass-through without interrupting traffic on any other wavelength. Two major approaches have been taken: wavelength selection switch (WSS) and tunable filter based optical add/drop (TOADM). In this talk, we report a few schemes, which provide certain degrees of reconfigurabilities. Typically, the flexibility and cost are contradictory to each other. We will compare these approaches in terms of performance, cost and availability.