A multi-channel optical star LAN and its application as a broadband switch

A simple optical star local area network is considered with an equal number of users and channels in the system. Optical LANs provide very high aggregate network throughputs due to concurrency achievable through wavelength division multiplexing (WDM). Using a WDM technique, multiple channels can be created in an optical fiber and a multichannel LAN can be configured using these parallel channels and a simple passive optical star coupler. The authors consider such an optical star network. Some switching protocols are developed for this LAN and its application as an integrated broadband switch, is also presented. Some of the numerical results of the throughput and delay equations for the switching protocols are presented.<>