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Optical metropolitan networks:

The basis of all communications

Introduction optical transmission to the L-band. The
introduction of the L-band, opens the
Nowadays, the metro area networks
(MANs), which are networks designed to opportunity for cheaper solutions by adding
interconnect systems of nearby cities or more Wavelength-Division Multiplexing (WDM)
metropolitan regions, have a decisive role in channels to the already in use C-band
the continuous growth of Internet traffic. The channels, rather than placing several fibres in
faster traffic growth is mainly because of the parallel working in the C-band.

5G technology applied to the cloud services, All the internet services impose a wide array
which are becoming increasingly important to of requirements on the networks, such as
improve the cloud services integration with capacity/flexibility or cost/complexity
low to zero latency, making for smoother because of the need for more capacity in

communications. The increased number of optical transport networks, as there are no
u s e r s , i n c l u d i n g p e r s o n - t o - p e r s o n signs of a slowdown.
communications and machine-to-machine So, the MANs must provide flexibility in
communications, is also becoming faster. managing diverse service requirements. In

figure 1, it is possible to see an example of a
The Multi-Band Transmission possible metro network (whose function is to transport

solution data between core and access networks) and
how this network connects with the access
The traffic growth scenario will probably
contribute to saturating the current metro (remote storage and switching) and core

networks capacity in the networks (cloud capabilities).
near future. The Multi-
Band Transmission
( M B T ) e n a b l e s

transmissions beyond
the C-band by opening
the second and third
low-loss windows of
S i n g l e - M o d e F i b e r

(SMF) ITU-T G-652.A/D,
b e i n g t h e m o s t
s t r a i g h t f o r w a r d
solution upgrading the Figure 1: Example of a MAN. Source: The author

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