New strategies to confront with the threat of capacity exhaustion

Abstract

Traffic generated by the internet has grown at the rate of about 100% a year since it was first measured, but has dominated the communication networks since the turn of the century. The networks prepared for this critical moment with the deployment of a large optical infrastructure, initially over-dimensioned. The advent of the WDM technology started a drive towards bandwidth mining, which is now reaching the effective occupation of the amplifiers gain bandwidth. Hence the emergence of the elastic optical networks as the first step to avoid the capacity crunch through enhancement of the network spectral efficiency. With this aim, two strategies are used: distance adaptiveness, through the adaptive ability of choosing the most spectrally efficient modulation scheme that is able to provide the required noise immunity; and flexibility in the allocation of spectrum to the user in order to avoid waste. A second step will deploy new fibers with several spatial modes, such that each mode maybe modulated independently. However, in order to face the energy bottleneck, it will be necessary to limit the traffic itself through the adoption of appropriate protocols in the higher layers, eliminating unnecessary or redundant traffic through datacentric addressing. Finally, traffic management will have to be aligned with the neutrality and other directives in order to preserve both the public nature of future internet and its promise of unceasing innovation. Our project will contribute to the success of these strategies through academic studies conducted in an interdisciplinary environment enriched with international cooperation. (AU)