Introduction

The explosion in Internet traffic and the emergence of bandwidth-intensive delay-sensitive multimedia applications have a significant influence on the design of next generation telecommunication networks. These bandwidth-intensive delay-sensitive multimedia applications such as tele-medicine, virtual reality, data visualization, etc., are witnesses to a paradigm shift: the dawn of the multimedia age. The implication of these applications on telecommunication networks is powerful. Current telecommunication networks should evolve to match this paradigm shift. This means that they must move from being voice-centric and towards being data-centric. Photonic network technology is believed to be the answer. Photonic networking offers quantum leaps in both transmission capacity and node throughput by exploiting two major techniques: 1) Wavelength Division Multiplexing(WDM) and 2) Wavelength Routing. Wavelength division multiplexing offers the pre-eminent technology to take advantage of the enormous bandwidth of optical fibers [1]. WDM partitions the bandwidth of the fiber into many orthogonal channels where each channel is operated by an independent electronic device. An optical network consists of an interconnection of stations, cross-connects, and other devices using optical fiber.