Before discussing the book's topic, intended audience, etc., we remark that another book, entitled Optical Communication Networks, was published by the same author in 1997. Eight years is a long time in our fast-moving field. Relative to the old book, a brief outline of the new materials in the new book is provided below, followed by brief descriptions of what has been revamped and what has been deleted.

Research and development on optical wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) networks have matured considerably. While optics and electronics should be used appropriately for transmission and switching hardware, note that "intelligence'' in any network comes from "software,'' for network control, management, signaling, traffic engineering, network planning, etc.The role of software in creating powerful network architectures for optical WDM networks is emphasized.

Optical WDM Networks is a textbook for graduate level courses. Its focus is on the networking aspects of optical networking, but it also includes coverage of physical layers in optical networks. The author introduces WDM and its enabling technologies and discusses WDM local, access, metro, and long-haul network architectures. Each chapter is self-contained, has problems at the end of each chapter, and the material is organized for self study as well as classroom use. The material is the most recent and timely in capturing the state-of-the-art in the fast-moving field of optical WDM networking.