Programmable logic design for an optical access network: Master's thesis

The structure of communication networks is going to change in the future. Datacom, telecom and broadcast traffic is conventionally transported over separated networks, which is a major cost factor in network management for operators. In addition, legacy communication networks cannot provide adequate quality of service for the emerging interactive multimedia services. For this reason, the development of communications networks is heading towards flexibility and convergence. At the moment, the bottleneck factor in the development of communication networks transfer speed is the complexity of the metropolitan area feeder networks. This has a considerable effect on the service quality in this area as well. The TEKES-funded OAN-project concentrates on developing a new and simpler metropolitan optical feeder network, which could be used to improve the quality of service in the metropolitan area. This thesis has been prepared as a part of the OAN-project. In this thesis, the structure of the present communication networks is presented and its problems are discussed. Based on this discussion, the future structure of communication networks is illustrated. Furthermore, the HDL-implementation process with its aggregates will be discussed. Finally, a programmable logic design for the optical metropolitan feeder network prototype, implemented in the OAN project, is presented.