10 Gigabit Ethernet Interconnection with Wide Area Networks

By far, the most widely used networking technology in Wide Area Networks (WANs) is SONET/SDH. With the growth of Ethernet now into Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs) there is a growing need to interconnect Ethernet LANs and MANs to these prevalent SONET networks. With the advent of 10 Gigabit Ethernet, the commonality of line rates between OC-192 SONET and 10GE has opened up the opportunity to simplify the interface. This paper describes how 10GE nodes can easily interconnect with OC192 SONET networks without leaving the Ethernet cost model behind.