Introduction: Optical networks are the next revolution in technology because they deliver the increased bandwidth.

Optical networks are spreading outward from Internet backbones to cities to corporations and even to the home. Cities are in a strategic position to create leading edge optical infrastructure that will drive economic growth. Advantages of MAN: 1. It covers wider area than LAN. 2. Bandwidth (potential speed) of the connecting links. i.e. resources shared on the network can be accessed extremely quickly. 3. It allows multiple users to share the same high-speed internet connection, thereby sharing the cost of the service and securing a better quality of service. Disadvantages of MAN: 1. High cost of the cutting-edge technology employed. 2. Slow speed as compared to LAN. Wide Area Network: WAN covers a large geographical area. Distance covered by WAN can range from links between switching facilities to long haul intercity connections. WAN resources are owned and operated either by private organizations or by telecommunication service providers. WAN operates on the principle of point to point communication.

Advantages of WAN: 1. It covers large geographical area. Disadvantages of WAN: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Low transmission speed. Design is complex. Maintenance is difficult. It suffers from propagation delay. Cost is high.

Comparision between LAN, MAN and WAN: Sr. No. 1 Local Area Network Covers small geographical area. Metropolition Area Network Wide Area Network

Covers geographical area larger Covers large than LAN and smaller than geographical area.

High transmission speed.

WAN. Medium transmission speed. Moderate error rates. Moderate cost.

3 Lowest error rates. 4 Low cost. Network topology:

Low transmission speed. Highest error rates. High cost.

Network topology is the arrangement of the various elements like links, nodes, etc. of a network. There are four common topologies used for optical networks which are as follows: 1. Bus topology 2. Ring topology 3. Star topology 4. Mesh topology

Bus topology (Daisy chain topology): In bus topology, a set of clients are connected through shared communication line known as bus. This topology is well-suited for temporary or small networks not requiring high speeds, resulting in faster networks. It is cost effective and easy identification of cable faults is possible. Bus topology is the simplest way to connect multiple clients. It faces problems when two clients want to transmit simultaneously on the same bus. So, systems which uses bus topology normally have some scheme of collision handling or collision avoidance for communication on the bus. Fig. shows bus topology.