Limit of Node Expandability Considering ASE Noise and Protection Architecture in WDM SHR

The maximum number of nodes in WDM self healing ring network is limited by several factors including network architecture and ASE noise due to EDFAs at each optical ADM node. In this paper, the maximum node numbers for several protection architectures and bit rates limited by ASE are calculated and compared with the number limited by wavelength numbers. Appropriate design rules can be deduced from these results.