New Optical Amplifier Placement Schemes for Broadcast Networks

Abstract

WDM optical broadcast networks (based on the passive-star coupler) may encounter large splitting and attenuation losses that need to be compensated for using optical amplifiers, such as EDFAs. However, optical amplifiers are costly, so their total count in the network should be minimized. This study will examine three different such amplifier-placement schemes. The first approach utilize fewer amplifiers than previous schemes that do not add special hardware to avoid the near-far effect. The second study considers a bidirectionai-link network and it can use fewer amplifiers than a comparable unidirectional-link network. The third study minimizes the number of amplifiers when the amplifiers are equipped with special hardware to avoid the near-far effect, i.e., amplifiers are equipped with attenuators/filters to equalize amplifier input power on different wavelengths.