This talk will present a case study on optical fiber networks; from birth to its temporary lull in the last four years and prospects for the future. The development of optical network is an amazing engineering revolution. The trigger of its birth is the advent of new optical devices that are different in functions from conventional electronic network devices. These disruptive technologies give rise to new architectures that promise orders of magnitude advances much faster than Moores Law. With a major paradigm shift in technology building blocks and radically new architecture possibilities, future optical networks will not resemble any linear extensions of previous networks and call for new imaginations, creativity and new mathematical tools to guide their designs. Current optical networks are only at their infancies. Substantially more capable and lower cost networks will be realized in the future.

Vincent W. S. Chan is the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Professor of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science and Aeronautics & Aeronautics, and Director of the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS) at MIT. He received his BS (71), MS (71), EE (72), and Ph.D. (74) degrees in electrical engineering from MIT in the area of communications. From 1974 to 1977, he was an assistant professor with the School of Electrical Engineering at Cornell University. He joined Lincoln Laboratory in 1977 as a staff member of the Satellite Communication System Engineering Group working on military communications and networking. In January 1981, he became the Assistant Leader of the Communication Technology Group starting a research and development program on optical space communications. In July 1983, he formed and became Leader of the Optical Communication Technology Group and Manager of the LITE (Laser Intersatellite Transmission Experiment) Program. He became the Head of the Communications and Information Technology Division of Lincoln Laboratory until joining LIDS in 1999.

He has served as the Director of the All-Optical-Network Consortium formed among MIT, AT&T and Digital Equipment Corporation from 1990-1996, the principal investigator of a Next Generation Internet Consortium (ONRAMP) formed among AT&T, Cabletron, MIT, and JDS Fitel from 1996-2001, and a Satellite Networking Research Consortium formed between MIT, Motorola, Teledesic and Globalstar rom 1999-2004. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Vitesse Semiconductor Corporation and the Chairman of its Technical Advisory Board. He also serves on the Technical Advisory Board of Agility Communications, and as a Member of the Corporation of Draper Laboratory. His research interests are in optical, wireless and space communications and networks. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and the Optical Society of America.