Network architectures for optical burst switching in "broadcast and select" switching

The paper describes the use of optical semiconductor amplifiers (SOA) and explains "optical burst switching" (OBS) as situations where several Internet protocol packets are aggregated electronically for broadband Internet applications. It presents calculations and results of a simulation relating to scalability of optical switching nodes, and examines signal quality and error rate due to noise in semiconductor amplifiers and optical switches, and refers to optical wavelength conversion. The paper notes that optical burst switching should be achievable within 1 microsecond, and refers to avoidance of switching conflicts, by using intermediate burst storage, and also deals with multicast applications, used for conference connections.