Impact of tunability and blocking fabric on optical slot switching ring performance

Optical slot switching rings have been proposed as optical transport networks for segments subject to rapid traffic variations and latency restriction. In order to achieve any-to-any node communication over the ring, optical slot switching networks rely on fast wavelength tunable lasers. With the introduction of the coherent technology, fast wavelength tunability is now available at the receiver side. Additionally, optical slot switching nodes may use a slot blocker that can block any slot on any wavelength. In this paper we investigate the impact on the network performance of the optical part of the slot switching node, both in terms of location of the fast wavelength tunable element and of the presence of the slot blocker.