Do we really need dynamic wavelength-routed optical networks?

It is widely believed that dynamic operation in wavelength-routed optical networks could overcome the inefficiencies of static allocation in wavelength usage. In this paper this hypothesis is reviewed by quantifying the wavelength requirements in dynamic wavelength-routed optical networks and the comparison of these to those of the static approach. To do so, new analytical and heuristic lower bounds for the wavelength requirements in dynamic networks are proposed. They are used to evaluate the optimality of existing algorithms whose wavelength requirements are evaluated by means of simulation. Results show that dynamic wavelength-routed optical networks can save wavelengths only at low traffic loads (< 0.4) and that the highest savings are achieved in sparsely physically connected networks.