The Internet revolution. Once, the public was delighted with 14.4 modem access and fascinated by low-tech Web site content. But not for long. Technology has raced to keep up with users' calls for high-speed facilities and advanced applications. With the development of high-speed transmission media and the availability of high-speed hardware, we are

This volume contains the proceedings of the NOC 2001 at Adastral park, UK, June 26-29 2001. With about 70 papers, this book highlights the gigabit ethernet PON developments, and other work on standard broadband PONs such as, dynamic bandwith assignment. There are 10 papers on optical packet switiching and work on optical cross-connects and DWDM for long-haul systems is presented.

The fast growing traffic demand in telecommunication networks, by use of the Internet and an increasing number of broadband services for multimedia com munications, requires new high performance networking technologies. As such, optical WDM networks are playing a pivotal role. Wavelength Division Mul tiplexing (WDM) with many hundreds of wavelength channels per fiber is ex tensively being exploited in wide area networks. With respect to the ongoing trend towards a completely packet-switched mode of operation for all services, WDM networks must be prepared accordingly. This work concentrates on optical packet-switched networking in local and metro area networks for realizing high-performance applications like virtual re ality, medical imaging, and supercomputing. It is well known that in those networks using a star, bus, or ring shared medium, an access protocol is nec essary to guarantee controlled and fair access for all attached nodes. Similar access protocols are to be developed and analyzed for WDM local and metro area networks. Already, many media access protocols for these networks have been described in the literature. However, some aspects of Quality-of-Service (QoS) for different service classes are still an open issue and subject to inten sive research activities. In the introduction, the author, Dr. Kemal Bengi, gives a short classification of media access protocols and network architectures for WDM local and metro area networks. The need for service classes is also em phasized.

Time division multiplexing (TDM) has been the fundamental basis for adding capacity to digital telecommunications networks for decades. However, within the past two years, wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) has been emerging as an important and widely deployed complement to TDM. Sales of systems based on the new technology have risen at breathtaking speed. The driving force behind this sales explosion was the unexpected rapid exhaustion of long distance fiber network capacity. This fiber exhaust, combined with favorable economics for WDM, led to the use of this technology over other alternatives. The WDM deployment raises fundamental and challenging problems that require novel and innovative solutions. This volume presents papers from an interdisciplinary workshop held at DIMACS on multichannel optical networks. Leading computer science theorists and practitioners discussed admissions control, routing and channel assignment, multicasting and protection, and fault-tolerance. The book features application of theoretical and/or algorithmical results to practical problems and addresses the influence of practical problems to theoretical/algorithmic studies. The volume can serve as a text for an advanced course in computer science, networking, and operations research.

This study of all-optical networking consists of 44 papers on topics such as network elements and performance modelling, multiplexing strategies, access networks and local area networks.

Research and development on optical wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) networks have matured considerably. While optics and electronics should be used appropriately for transmission and switching hardware, note that "intelligence'' in any network comes from "software,'' for network control, management, signaling, traffic engineering, network planning, etc.The role of software in creating powerful network architectures for optical WDM networks is emphasized. Optical WDM Networks is a textbook for graduate level courses. Its focus is on the networking aspects of optical networking, but it also includes coverage of physical layers in optical networks. The author introduces WDM and its enabling technologies and discusses WDM local, access, metro, and long-haul network architectures. Each chapter is self-contained, has problems at the end of each chapter, and the material is organized for self study as well as classroom use. The material is the most recent and timely in capturing the state-of-the-art in the fast-moving field of optical WDM networking.