Terabit Burst Switching
			      Jon Turner
		  Washington University in St. Louis

Wavelength division multiplexing is beginning to transform the
transmission infrastructure in long distance communication
networks. Current applications of WDM involve static usage of the
individual WDM channels.  This talk explores switching technologies
capable of allocating WDM channels in an on-demand fashion with fine
granularities (microsecond time scales). These technologies can make
it possible to implement efficient statistical multiplexing with low
overhead for applications with burst rates of 10 Gb/s and burst
durations as short as 1 Kbyte. The research focuses on the electronic
control mechanisms needed to implement such systems, and shows that
burst switching for links with capacities in excess of 100 Gb/s is
feasible.