SIGnet: a new ultra-high-speed lightwave network architecture

A high-speed network architecture, SIGnet (Slotted Interconnected-Grid network), is introduced. SIGnet is intended for metropolitan and extended-metropolitan areas and is currently being studied under the extremely high-speed networks project of the Telecommunications Research Institute of Ontario. In SIGnet, the topology is piecewise-regular and permits bandwidth allocation and network evolution which is much more easily accomplished than in previous designs. Since a system consisting of an arbitrary piecewise interconnection of regular topological segments can be engineered, many of the problems are alleviated. An introduction to the new network design is given, and some preliminary results obtained concerning the traffic processing schemes which have been investigated are presented.<>