Optical distribution channel: an 'almost-all' optical LAN based on the field-coding technique

The authors introduce the design of the optical distribution channel, which serves as a local-area network and facilitates high-speed interconnection among heterogeneous machines in a way that is economically justifiable. In particular, they describe a design of an almost-all-optical local-area network that is capable of providing a gigabit per second transmission rate directly to the user. The network design is based on the 802.6 topology, a field coding technique in which the header and the data fields are encoded at different rates, and the principle of almost-all-optical switching.< >