On the number of fiber connections and star couplers in multi-star single-hop networks

The single star optical network is limited in size by the available power budget. When the network size exceeds the number of connections a star coupler can support, it becomes necessary to use multiple passive star couplers to implement the network. The cost of a multi star optical network is determined by the number of fiber connections per station and the number of star couplers in the network. To reduce the cost of the network, it is desirable to use as least amount of fiber connections per station and star couplers as possible. We consider two multi star implementations of single hop networks, and discuss how to implement them with least cost.