Multihop Field Trial of Optical Burst Switching Testbed With PLZT Optical Matrix Switch

We report 92-km 2-hop field trial of an optical burst-switching (OBS) network testbed, consisting of a (Pb, La)(Zr, Ti)O
₃
(PLZT) space switching matrix and a contention-resolving wavelength converter. Owing to the low polarization-dependent loss of the PLZT switch, we achieve stable forwarding of 40/10-Gb/s mixed-bit-rate signals with wavelength conversion. We also perform Layer-2 evaluation at a line rate of 40 Gb/s by using specially developed Ether-frame media converters. Loss-free transport of encapsulated Ether-frames is demonstrated successfully over the 2-hop OBS field testbed.