The General Nutronics solution is designed to offer the best of conventional optical-electronic-optical routing (OEO) and all-optical (O - O) switching. The system is fully capable for network switching, as shown in Table 1.

The flexibility and modularity of the approach allows systems to be deployed with the required capability at low initial cost, followed by incremental growth at incremental cost. Moreover, the absence of constraints afforded by the GN solution will minimize network administrative costs, and will aid in the formation of an open, multi-vendor network that can easily accept new traffic sources, with associated growth of carrier revenues.

General Nutronics has developed a prototype CWDM optical switch with capacity for multiple fibers and multiple wavelengths. As the optical system grows, it will scale gracefully in size from a 3x10x19-inch-wide unit on a rack with throughput of about 10 terabits per second, to the size of a small desk for a throughput of several petabits per second.

Table 1. Capabilities of the General Nutronics solution