SONET

INTRODUCTION
Digital transmission standards for fiber-optic cable
Independently developed in USA & Europe

SONET (Synchronous Optical Network) by ANSI

SDH (Synchronous Digital Hierarchy) by ITU-T

Synchronous network using synchronous TDM multiplexing

All clocks in the system are locked to a master clock
It contains the standards for fiber-optic equipments
SONET was originally designed for the public telephone network.

A bit-way implementation providing end-to-end transport of bit

streams.

Multiplexing done by byte interleaving.

SONET commonly transmits data at speeds between 155

megabits per second (Mbps) and 2.5 gigabits per second (Gbps).

One of SONETs most interesting characteristics is its support

for a ring topology .

Very flexible to carry other transmission systems (DS-0, DS-1,

etc)

SONET LAYERS

SONET defines four layers: path, line, section, and photonic

Path layer is responsible for the movement of a signal from its
optical source to its optical destination
Line layers is for the movement of a signal across a physical line
Section layer is for the movement of a signal across a physical
section, handling framing, scrambling, and error control
Photonic layer corresponds to the physical layer of OSI model

ADM

regenerator

ADM

Path

Line

Section

Line

Path

Termination

Termination

Termination

Termination

Termination

path
line
section

line
section

line
section

section

Architecture of a SONET system: signals, devices, and connections

Signals: SONET(SDH) defines a hierarchy of electrical signaling levels
called STSs (Synchronous Transport Signals,
(STMs)). Corresponding optical signals are called OCs (Optical
Carriers)
Devices: STS Multiplexer/ Demultiplexer, Regenerator, Add/Drop
Multiplexer and Terminals

 Connections: SONET devices are connected using sections,

lines, and paths

Section: optical link connecting two neighbor devices: mux

to mux, mux to regenerator, or regenerator to
regenerator
Lines: portion of network between two multiplexers
Paths: end-to-end portion of the network between two
STS multiplexers

SONET FRAMES

Each synchronous transfer signal STS-n is composed of 8000

frames.
Each frame is a two-dimensional matrix of bytes with 9 rows by 90
n columns.

 A SONET STS-n signal is transmitted at 8000 frames per second

Each byte in a SONET frame can carry a digitized voice channel

In SONET, the data rate of an STS-n signal is n times the data

rate of an STS-1 signal
In SONET, the duration of any frame is 125 s

SONET
NETWORKS

1. Point-to-point network :

2. Multipoint network :

Ring Network: UPSR

Unidirectional Path Switching Ring (UPSR)

Ring Network: BLSR

Bidirectional Line Switching Ring (BLSR)

Mesh Network
Ring network has the lack of scalability
Mesh network has better performance

SONET Advantages
Reduced network complexity and cost
Allows transportation of all forms of traffic
Efficient management of bandwidth at physical layer
Standard optical interface
De-multiplexing is easy.

SONET Disadvantages
Strict synchronization schemes required
Complex and costly equipment as compared to cheaper

Ethernet

SYNCHRONOUS
DIGITAL HIERARCHY
(SDh)

INTRODUCTION
Standard for interfacing optical networks
Simple multiplexing process
SDH is basically the international version of SONNET
SONNET is NORTH AMERICAN version of SDH

SDH frame structure

STM-1 frame is the basic transmission format for SDH

Frame lasts for 125 microseconds

It consists of overhead plus a virtual container

capacity

SDH network elements

Regenerator (Reg.)
Terminal Multiplexer (TM)
Add/Drop Multiplexer (ADM)
Digital Cross Connect (DXC)

REGENERATOR
STM-N

STM-N

Regenerator
It mainly performs 3R function:
1R Reamplification
2R Retiming
3R Reshaping
It regenerates the clock and amplifies the
incoming distorted and attenuated signal. It derive
the clock signal from the incoming data stream.

Terminal Multiplexer
(TM)
PDH
SDH

Terminal
Multiplexer

STM-N

It combines the Plesionchronous and synchronous

input signals into higher bit rate STM-N Signal.

Add/Drop Multiplexer
(ADM)
STM-N

Add / Drop
Multiplexer
PDH

SDH

STM-N

Digital Cross
Connect
(DXC)
STM-16
STM-4
STM-1

STM-16
STM-4
STM-1
140 Mbit/s
34 Mbit/s
2 Mbit/s

140 Mbit/s
34 Mbit/s
2 Mbit/s

Cross - Connect

TYPICAL LAYOUT OF SDH

LAYERGeneral view of Path Section designations
PDH
ATM
IP

SDH
multiplexer

SDH
Regenerator
SDH

SDH

Regenerator
Section

#
Crossconnect

SDH

SDH
multiplexer

Regenerator
Section

Multiplex Section

Multiplex Section

Path

Network Configurations
Point to Point

Point to Multipoint

Mesh Architecture

Ring Architecture

SDH Advantages
Allows multi-network internetworking
SDH is synchronous
Allows single stage multiplexing and de-multiplexing

DENSE WAVELENGTH
DIVISION MULTIPLEXING

THE GENERAL STRUCTURE OF THE

DWDM SYSTEM

A
B
C

Wavelength
Division
Multiplexer

Fibre

Wavelength
Division
Demultiplexer

2
3

1
2

1 2 + 3

X
Y
Z

Multiple channels of information carried over the same fibre, each using an individual
wavelength
Dense WDM is WDM utilising closely spaced channels
Channel spacing reduced to 1.6 nm and less
Cost effective way of increasing capacity without replacing fibre
Allows new optical network topologies, for example high speed metropolitian rings

 ITU Recommendation is G.692 "Optical interfaces for multichannel systems

with optical amplifiers"
G.692 includes a number of DWDM channel plans
Channel separation set at:

50, 100 and 200 GHz

equivalent to approximate wavelength spacings of 0.4, 0.8 and 1.6 nm

Channels lie in the range 1530.3 nm to 1567.1 nm (so-called C-Band)

Newer "L-Band" exists from about 1570 nm to 1620 nm
Supervisory channel also specified at 1510 nm to handle alarms and
monitoring

Optical Spectral
Bands

Receivers

DWDM
Multiplexer
Optical
fibre

Power
Amp

Line
Amp

Line
Amp

Transmitters

Receive
Preamp
DWDM
DeMultiplexer

Each wavelength behaves as if it has it own "virtual fibre"

Optical amplifiers needed to overcome losses in mux/demux and long fibre spans

THE ERBIUM DOPED

FIBER
AMPLIFIERS (EDFA)
MULTIPLEXERS
DEMULTIPLEXERS
ADD/DROP
MULTIPLEXER
OPTICAL SWITCH.

DWDM Advantages
Greater fibre capacity
Easier network expansion

No new fibre needed

Just add a new wavelength

Incremental cost for a new channel is low

No need to replace many components such as optical amplifiers

DWDM systems capable of longer span lengths

TDM approach using STM-64 is more costly and more susceptible to chromatic and
polarization mode dispersion

Can move to STM-64 when economics improve

DWDM Disadvantages
Not cost-effective for low channel numbers

Fixed cost of mux/demux, transponder, other system components

Introduces another element, the frequency domain,

to network design and management
SONET/SDH network management systems not well
equipped to handle DWDM topologies
DWDM performance monitoring and protection
methodologies developing