Abstract-In this paper, we present a novel networking technique based on optical Multi-Band Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (MB-OFDM). We highlight the interesting features of the solution with respect to existing ones (fully opaque optical networks and transparent networks) for optical metro and core networks. We show that under certain traffic condition MB-OFDM may offer useful flexibility in the context of increasing wavelength bit rates.Keywords: multi-bands orthogonal frequency division multiplexing; optical networking; reconfigurable optical add and drop multiplexer

International audienceWith the continuing growth in the amount of traffic, improving the flexibility and the transparency of optical networks is a very important problem facing operators today. In this paper, we present a networking technique based on optical multi-band Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing. The optical multi-band OFDM approach enables optical switching at fine granularity in a highly spectrum-efficient manner. We study the performance of this approach in term of blocking compared to mono-band opaque and mono-band transparent OFDM technologies in an optical core network. We show that the flexibility offered by optical multi-band OFDM is efficient in term of blocking and that the sub-band granularity has an important impact on the blocking ratio

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