TERANET - A MULTI-GIGABITS PER SECOND ATM NETWORK

TeraNet is an experimental network being built at the Center for Telecommunications Research, Columbia University. The network is part of the ACORN (Advanced Communications Organization for Research Network) project The purpose of ACORN is to investigate innovative optical network architectures which offer user access at data rates as high as one Gigabit per second (Gbit/s). The design principles of TeraNet incorporate three main concepts: a transmission medium that contains multiple channels, a system architecture that employs a multihop approach to routing packets, and a traffic control architecture that supports multiple traffic classes. The network contains a set of network interface units (NIU) that are interconnected with passive optics. Each NIU is a two-by-two switch with an additional user access port. Each of the six NIU ports (three input and three output) can handle data rates up to one Gbit/s. The NIU buffers and the bandwidth of the output links are shared by four traffic classes according to the ATS concept of resource allocation. The packet format and routing procedure are compatible with the emerging ATM standard.