The customized and service-orientated all-optical network can implement ultrahigh
speed transmitting, routing and switching of data in the optical domain, and has
the transparency to data formats and protocols which increases network
flexibility and functionality such that future network requirements can be met.
OCDMA technology is one of the promising technologies to implement all-optical
networks, which has the potential to exploit the previously unmined bandwidth
of optical fiber and take advantage of the predominance of radio CDMA, such as
subscribers’ flexible and effective sharing of the spectrum and time and space
resources, and resisting jamming and eavesdropping.
OCDMA is a category of multiplexing and internetworking technologies that
encodes/decodes signals through employing simple and cost-effective passive
optical components (not requiring optical logic components) such that the signal
multiplexing, routing and switching can be implemented smoothly. It has many
advantages, such as asynchronous random access, simple management, flexible
networking, good compatibility with WDM and TDM, suitable for bursty traffic,
supporting multiple services and differentiated QoS, while providing some
confidentiality of data transmission. It is a very important technology to implement
optical access networks, metropolitan area networks and optical signal multiplexing
and switching in backbone networks.