Crosstalk-Aware vs. Crosstalk-Avoided Approaches in Spectrally-Spatially Elastic Optical Networks: Which is the Better Choice?

Crosstalk (XT) is one of the major obstacles for resource allocation in spectrally-spatially elastic optical networks (SS-EONs). In SS-EONs, XT-aware and XT-avoided approaches are considered two main methods to deal with inter-core and inter-mode XTs. This paper addresses the question: which is the better choice for network operators between XT-aware and XT-avoided approaches to deal with inter-core and inter-mode XTs? Numerical results show that the XT-aware approach outperforms the XT-avoided approach in terms of resource utilization. On the other hand, the XT-avoided approach requires less computation time than the XT-aware approach.