A Transponder for Gigabit Ethernet over WDM

Abstract

The deployment of Gigabit Ethernet in corporate and ISP networks makes the transmission over WDM networks necessary to provide for the interconnection over metropolitan and wide area WDM networks. As the specifications of the optical signal between Gigabit Ethernet and the WDM-network mismatch, a transponder is needed. We propose an architecture for a Gigabit Ethernet over WDM transponder and report on a transponder prototype implementation. We further show how to use the transponder for Gigabit Ethernet networks over WDM rings.