Optical Networking Crash Course

Steven Shepard (Williston, VT) is a professional writer and educator specializing in international telecommunications. He has written and taught technical courses on a broad range of topics around the globe. He is the author of several books, including Telecommunications Convergence and Optical Networking Demystified.

Part One: The Optical Networking Marketplace. Chapter 1: Toward a New Network Model. Chapter 2: A Corollary: The Data Network. Chapter 3: The Local Service Providers' Response. Chapter 4: Service Regions of the Optical Network. Chapter 5: The Optical Networking Applications Set. Chapter 6: A Brief History of the Network. Chapter 7: The Traditional Digital Hierarchy. Chapter 8: The Birth of Optical Networking: Sonet and SDH. Chapter 9: Switching and Routing. Chapter 10: The Service Provider's World: Back to Switching and Routing. Chapter 11: Ring Architectures in the Optical Domain. Chapter 12: Amplification and Regeneration. Part Two: From Copper to Glass. Chapter 13: Overview of Optical Technology. Chapter 14: Total Internal Reflection. Chapter 15: Later Developments in Optical Networking. Chapter 16: Fundamentals of Optical Networking. Chapter 17: Optical Sources. Chapter 18: Optical Fiber. Chapter 19: Optical Fiber. Chapter 20: Putting It All Together. Chapter 21: Fiber Nonlinearities. Chapter 22: Intermodulation Effects. Chapter 23: Scattering Problems. Chapter 24: An Aside: Optical Amplification. Chapter 25: Pulling it all Together. Chapter 26: Optical Receivers. Chapter 27: Photodetector Types. Chapter 28: Optical Fiber. Chapter 29: Multimode Fiber. Chapter 30: Single-Mode Fiber. Chapter 31: Why Do We Care? Part Three: Corollary Technologies. Chapter 32: Introduction. Chapter 33: Optical Cable Assemblies. Chapter 34: Fiber Cable Architectures. Chapter 35: The Special Case of Submarine Cables. Chapter 36: Fiber Installation Options. Chapter 37: Commercial Fiber Products. Chapter 38: An Aside: Freespace Optics. Chapter 39: Summary. Chapter 40: Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM). Chapter 41: Optical Switching and Routing. Chapter 42: Network Management. Part Four: Solutions and Applications. Chapter 43: The Optical Hierarchy of Motivation. Chapter 44: Players in the Network Game. Chapter 45: Reinventing the Network. Chapter 46: Toward a New Network Paradigm. Chapter 47: Why the Evolution? Chapter 48: The Evolving IP Protocol Model. Chapter 49: IP's Promise. Chapter 50: Protocol Assemblies: Putting it Together. Chapter 51: One More time: Putting it All Together. Chapter 52: The Future.