SONET

High-speed (up to 2.5 Gbps) synchronous network specification developed by Bellcore and designed to run on optical fiber. STS-1 is the basic building block of SONET. Approved as an international standard in 1988. On a larger scale, the telecommunications industry uses the SONET standard for optical transport of TDM data. SONET, used in North America, is related standards that specify interface parameters, rates, framing formats, multiplexing methods, and management for synchronous TDM over fiber.

SONET is the American National Standards Institute standard for synchronous data transmission on optical media. The international equivalent of SONET is synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH). Together, they ensure standards so that digital networks can interconnect internationally and that existing conventional transmission systems can take advantage of optical media through tributary attachments.

SONET provides standards for a number of line rates up to the maximum line rate of 9.953 gigabits per second (Gbps). Actual line rates approaching 20 gigabits per second are possible. SONET is considered to be the foundation for the physical layer of the broadband ISDN (BISDN).

Asynchronous transfer mode runs as a layer on top of SONET as well as on top of other technologies. SONET defines a base rate of 51.84 Mbps and a set of multiples of the base rate known as "Optical Carrier levels (OCx)."

SONET

The figure displays an example of statistical TDM. SONET takes n bit streams, multiplexes them, and optically modulates the signal, sending it out using a light emitting device over fiber with a bit rate equal to (incoming bit rate) x n. Thus traffic arriving at the SONET multiplexer from four places at 2.5 Gb/s goes out as a single stream at 4 x 2.5 Gb/s, or 10 Gb/s. This principle is illustrated in the figure, which shows an increase in the bit rate by a factor of four in time slot T.