The Essential Guide to Optical Networks

The up-to-the-minute briefing on optical networking for every non-technical professional and business decision-maker.

• The up-to-the-minute optical networking guide for every business, marketing, and investment professional
• The only easy-to-read guide to explain the components, systems, and technologies needed to build today's intelligent optical network
• How optical networking transforms the Internet-and your competitive landscape
• Clear, non-technical explanations of every key optical networking technology
• Next-generation optical networks: "IP-over-optical," "all-optical," and the coming "optical enterprise"
• Fiber for business and home: challenges and opportunities

Optical networks are transforming the Internet, making it possible to deliver amazing amounts of bandwidth for every application, from business to entertainment—and beyond. Now there's an easy-to-understand guide to optical networking for every non-technical professional! Network Magazine International Technology Editor David Greenfield offers crisp, witty explanations of everything you need to know: infrastructure, trends, applications—and the new breakthroughs that will make optical networks even more powerful and ubiquitous.

• Clear, accessible explanations of all five generations of optical networking
• Generation 1: Fiber for transport only
• Generation 2: Maximizing speed with DWDM and related technologies
• Generation 3: Replacing SDH/SONET with IP-over-optical-intelligent TCP/IP-based optical infrastructure
• Generation 4: Tomorrow's amazing all-optical networks
• Generation 5: The far distant horizon: "Optical enterprises" that move optical technology into premises—and into computers themselves
• How optical networks fit into the existing public network infrastructure
• Delivering fiber-based services to homes and businesses: challenges and opportunities

Whether you're a manager, consultant, sales, marketing, or PR professional, investor, or student, you need to understand the extraordinary power and impact of tomorrow's optical networks. The Essential Guide to Optical Networks explains these pivotal technologies from a business standpoint-without hype, jargon, or math!

Table of Contents

Preface.
Acknowledgments.

PART I.

1. Networking at Light Speed.
2. The Basics of Communications.

PART II.

3. Fundamentals of Light.
4. Fiber Optic Cabling.
5. Optical Components.
6. Switching Technologies. 

PART III.

7. The SONET Factor.
8. Metro Core Technologies.
9. Going the Last Mile.
10. Optical Signaling.
Appendix Key Differences between Single-Mode Fiber Specs.
Glossary.
Bibliography.
Index.