All-optical-networking at 0.8 Tb/s using reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers

We report on the successful operation of a metropolitan DWDM network composed of static and reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers. The error-free transmission of 80 channels at 10-Gb/s line rate (0.8 Tb/s aggregate capacity) is demonstrated in a transparent fiber ring of 60-km circumference. The 50-GHz technology is enabled by an optical frequency interleaver, and single wavelength channels are routed dynamically by thermally tunable fiber gratings. This work experimentally demonstrates the concept for the German KOMNET Cityring field-trial, Berlin, Germany.