In this book, the authors provide an overview of the status, challenges, architectures, and technological solutions for core and metropolitan networks. Furthermore, the book describes the current state of core and metropolitan telecommunication networks, as well as the drivers and motives behind the current paradigm shift in the telecommunications industry. Moreover, the authors elaborate system design guidelines for both point-to-point and multi-hop optical networks taking into consideration the analogue nature of the transmission channel.

Key Features:

• Provides coverage of all aspects of core and metro networks supporting future broadband services, and a detailed description of the state-of-the-art
• Presents a clear path for migrating from point-to-point to   data-centric, dynamic,  multi-hop optical networks
• Shows how current systems will need to evolve over the coming years, summarizing challenges and issues to be investigated in future research
• Covers a wide range of topics from network architectures, to control plane, to key optical and optoelectronic devices, and best practice in transmission and system design
• Provides results, best practices and guidelines for various technical problems, including numerous hands-on examples
• Written by authors from cutting-edge companies such as Alcatel-Lucent, Siemens, Lucent, France Telecom, BT, and Telefonica

Optical Core and Metro Networks will be of interest to researchers in industry and academia, and advanced (final year undergraduate) and postgraduate students undertaking communications, networking and optics courses.

Dr. Alexandros Stavdas currently fills the position of Associate Professor in the department of Telecommunications Science and Technology at the University of Peloponnese, Tripolis, Greece. Dr. Stavdas holds a B.Sc. in Physics (University of Athens), a M.Sc. in Optoelectronics and Laser Devices (Heriot-Watt University/St-Andrews University), a Ph.D. (University College of London) in the field of wavelength routed WDM networks.
He is also heading the Optical Networking Group of NTUA. He is the author or co-author of over 50 journal publications and conference articles. He also served as Technical Program Committee Chairman and Member in a large number of conferences. Current interests include physical layer modeling of optical networks, ultra-high capacity end-to-end optical networks, OXC architectures, Optical Packet/Burst Switching and WDM access networks.