Bossnet: an all-optical long haul networking testbed

Bossnet (Boston South Network) is an optical networking testbed developed for the purposes of expanding knowledge about long haul communication using fiber optic transmission technology, and for demonstrating futuristic applications that demand very high bandwidths. Bossnet is the creation of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lincoln Laboratory, and Qwest Communications. The network became active in December of 1999 and is planned to remain operational through December 2003. This paper describes the infrastructure, reviews our initial experiments, and gives an overview of our plans.