WDM Modules in MAN Everything you Need to Know

The rapidly developing information technology has led to a fast increase in demand for high-capacity, long-distance bandwidth, resulting in rapid growth in traffic at the backbone, metro and access layers. As a result, reliance on direct fiber connections and bandwidth leasing is beginning to fail to meet the needs of industry customers

This is when it became clear that the demand for bandwidth would not be met.

At this point, it was proposed that if DWDM and CWDM wavelength division technologies were introduced into metro and access networks, the whole network would become a seamless whole, providing support and connectivity for all different services. Therefore WDM technology in MAN has great superiority and development potential, and will become inevitable for the evolution of the whole communication network to an all-optical network.

Based on the existing service requirements and oriented towards future network development, new optical transmission network systems are introduced. CWDM and DWDM technologies can make full use of the huge bandwidth resources of optical fibers, substantially increase the system transmission capacity and reduce transmission costs, so the technologies are widely used in the long-haul and backbone networks for very large capacity transmission. DWDM and CWDM technologies are used to expand coverage from backbone networks to metro and access layers, providing reliable, flexible and efficient high-bandwidth bearing solutions for operators, broadcasters, IDC, finance, government, cloud networks, big data and other industries.

Optical modules are one of the links, WDM wavelength division optical modules are optical converters in optical multiplexing transmission links, WDM optical modules belong to passive modules, itself does not emit laser, generally using optical planar waveguide (PLC) technology, only a beam of light into several beams of light. In contrast, ordinary optical modules are photoelectric conversion devices, active optical modules, each module has a transceiver and a transmitter two ports, the transmitter port inside is a laser.

WDM optical modules can be divided into (coarse wavelength division multiplexing) CWDM optical modules, which are suitable for short distance transmission, and (dense wavelength division multiplexing) DWDM optical modules, which are suitable for long distance transmission, according to the different wavelength densities.

CWDM optical modules are widely used in Gigabit Ethernet and point-to-point networks; DWDM optical modules are mainly used in large network environments such as metropolitan networks and local area networks.

Why use DWDM, CWDM systems in MANs?

In the past, SDH (Synchronous Digital Hierarchy) / SONET (Synchronous Optical Network) was the core component of MAN, however, this technology has limitations such as highly structured, single interface, limited bandwidth and cannot meet the diverse needs of enterprises, and the installation and operation costs of laying Ethernet networks using SDH / SONET technology are high. However, this technology has limitations such as highly structured, single interface, limited bandwidth and inability to meet the diverse needs of enterprises.

DWDM technology is an alternative solution to SDH/SONET technology, offering flexibility and versatility; DWDM systems can carry SDH, PDH and other unrestricted digital or analogue signals, thus allowing providers and enterprises to offer a wide range of services using DWDM technology. DWDM-based metro networks can make full use of the huge bandwidth resources of optical fibers, significantly increasing the transmission capacity of the system and reducing transmission costs.

DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing) is the technology of choice for today’s fiber optic applications, but its high price makes many customers hesitant; to reduce costs, new CWDM technology solutions have been developed. CWDM coarse wavelength division multiplexing (CWDM) systems are being favoured by operators for their low cost and ease of use.

WDM technology will have a broad application prospect in metro networks. It is believed that in the near future, WDM technology will make a great show in metro network applications.