The TDM Ring--A Fiber Optic Transport System for Campus or Metropolitan Networks

The TDM Ring uses standard telecommunications transmission formats, such as DS1 or DS3, to provide channel-switched communications. The system consists of nodes based on telco-style multiplexers interconnected by counterrotating rings. This paper describes the use of the TDM Ring as a backbone campus or metropolitan network, and focuses on possible fault recovery algorithms which make use of the dual ring structure. A comparison to other ring self-healing techniques is given.