Computer simulation of a metro WDM interconnected ring network

The impact of nonlinear propagation impairments, amplifier gain ripple, and inband crosstalk on the performance of an interconnected-ring metropolitan-scale wavelength-division-multiplexed (WDM) network is investigated. Despite the apparently short fiber spans typically encountered in metro networks, longer paths may arise in interconnected ring architectures. Within these, nonlinear transmission impairments may become significant even at relatively low launched powers. These paths should be properly engineered to balance the effects of both receiver electrical noise as well as fiber nonlinearities. Common-channel crosstalk will also accumulate in typical worst-case paths introducing additional performance deterioration and as a result crosstalk level performance requirements need to be set for each elementary component in the path.