Optical Transport Network

What Does Optical Transport Network Mean?

Optical Transport Network (OTN) is a protocol for sending network messaging over optical fiber networks. Experts define OTN as a collection of optical network elements (ONE) that communicate using wavelength division multiplexing (WDM).

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Techopedia Explains Optical Transport Network

Optical Transport Network is defined by the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T); the ITU-T recommendation G.709 is referred to as the Optical Transport Network protocol. G.709 may also be called "digital wrapper technology" or "optical channel wrapper technology."

Optical Transport Network has been built on the premise of synchronous optical networking (SONET) and synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH), which use a system of laser pulses for transmission. These types of systems emerged to handle large sets of data over fiber-optic telecom systems, where more sophisticated protocols could handle synchronization better.

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Margaret Rouse

Margaret Rouse is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical, business audience. Over the past twenty years her explanations have appeared on TechTarget websites and she's been cited as an authority in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine and Discovery Magazine.Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages. If you have a suggestion for a new definition or how to improve a technical explanation, please email Margaret or contact her…