Abstract
Abstract: For the full utilization of the high transmission bandwidth of optical fiber, several optically transparent switching nodes are proposed for use in photonic LANs, MANs or B-ISDN access networks. The node design is simple and adaptable to various networks including rings, buses, and WDM networks. In this paper, we analyze the performance of the optical ring networks which utilize the photonic packet switching nodes. A quantitative performance comparison study is carried out to observe the effect of header speed on the optical ring network performance.