Developments in wavelength division multiple access networking

The last few years have seen a growing interest in WDM for optical networks in order to increase the capacity and overcome the electronic bottleneck. Alongside the improvement in the WDM components there has been continuing development of WDMA networks. A large number of different WDMA strategies have been investigated in terms of both network architecture and the associated protocol requirements. This article identifies major themes and provides examples of experimental and theoretical developments which are anticipated to facilitate WDMA networking.