Performance of the PAC optical packet network

The performance aspects of the PAC (protection-against-collision) optical packet network are discussed. An analysis is made of the delay-throughput performance of this network for uniform traffic patterns. Results show that in geographically distributed applications the maximum achievable throughput (normalized to the transmission rate) is typically between 0.4 and 0.5 per channel. For example, the maximum achievable throughput is between 400 and 500 Gb/s for a 1000-channel system with a 1-Gb/s transmission rate. In a centralized switch, the (normalized) maximum achievable throughput can approach 0.8 per channel. These values are higher than previously published optical systems.<>