Optical Carrier transmission rates are a standardized set of specifications of transmission bandwidth for digital signals that can be carried on Synchronous Optical Networkingfiber opticnetworks. Transmission rates are defined by rate of the bitstream of the digital signal and are designated by hyphenation of the acronym OC and an integer value of the multiple of the basic unit of rate, e.g., OC-48. The base unit is 51.84 Mbit/s. Thus, the speed of optical-carrier-classified lines labeled as OC-n is n × 51.84 Mbit/s.
Optical Carrier specifications
Optical Carrier classifications are based on the abbreviation OC followed by a number specifying a multiple of 51.84 Mbit/s: n × 51.84 Mbit/s => OC-n. For example, an OC-3 transmission medium has 3 times the transmission capacity of OC-1.
OC-1
OC-1 is a SONET line with transmission speeds of up to 51.84 Mbit/s using optical fiber.
OC-3
OC-3 is a network line with transmission data rate of up to 155.52 Mbit/s using fiber optics. Depending on the system OC-3 is also known as STS-3 and STM-1.
OC-3c / STM-1
OC-3c concatenates three STS-1 frames into a single OC-3 look alike stream. The three STS-1 streams interleaved with each other such that the first column is from the first stream, the second column is from the second stream, and the third is from the third stream. Concatenated STS frames carry only one column of path overhead because they cannot be divided into finer granularity signals. Hence, OC-3c can transmit more payload to accommodate a CEPT-4 139.264 Mbit/s signal. The payload rate is 149.76 Mbit/s and overhead is 5.76 Mbit/s.
OC-12 / STM-4
OC-12 is a network line with transmission speeds of up to 622.08 Mbit/s. OC-12 lines are commonly used by ISPs as wide area network connections. While a large ISP would not use an OC-12 as a backbone, it would for smaller, regional or local connections. This connection speed is also often used by mid-sized internet customers, such as web hosting companies or smaller ISPs buying service from larger ones.
OC-24
OC-24 is a network line with transmission speeds of up to 1244.16 Mbit/s. Implementations of OC-24 in commercial deployments are rare.
OC-48 / STM-16 / 2.5G SONET
OC-48 is a network line with transmission speeds of up to 2488.32 Mbit/s. With relatively inexpensive interface prices, and being faster than OC-3, OC-12 connections, and even surpassing gigabit Ethernet, OC-48 connections are used as the backbones of many regional ISPs. Interconnections between large ISPs for purposes of peering or transit are quite common. As of 2005, the only connections in widespread use that surpass OC-48 speeds are OC-192 and 10 Gigabit Ethernet. OC-48 is also used as transmission speed for tributaries from OC-192 nodes in order to optimize card slot utilization where lower speed deployments are used. Dropping at OC-12, OC-3 or STS-1 speeds are more commonly found on OC-48 terminals, where use of these cards on an OC-192 would not allow for full use of the available bandwidth.
OC-192 / STM-64 / 10G SONET
OC-192 is a network line with transmission speeds of up to 9953.28 Mbit/s. A standardized variant of 10 Gigabit Ethernet, called WAN PHY, is designed to inter-operate with OC-192 transport equipment while the common version of 10GbE is called LAN PHY. The naming is somewhat misleading, because both variants can be used on a wide area network.
OC-768 / STM-256
OC-768 is a network line with transmission speeds of up to 39,813.12 Mbit/s ; overhead: 1,327.104 Mbit/s ). On October 23, 2008, AT&T announced the completion of upgrades to OC-768 on 80,000 fiber-optic wavelength miles of their IP/MPLSbackbone network. OC-768 SONET interfaces have been available with short-reach optical interfaces from Cisco since 2006. Infinera made a field trial demonstration data transmission on a live production network involving the service transmission of a 40Gbit/s OC-768/STM-256 service over a 1,969 km terrestrial network spanning Europe and the U.S. In November 2008, an OC-768 connection was successfully brought up on the TAT-14/SeaGirttransatlantic cable, the longest hop being 7,500 km.
OC-1920 / STM-640
OC-1920 is a network line with transmission speeds of up to 99,532.8 Mbit/s.
OC-3840 / STM-1280
OC-3840 is a network line with transmission speeds of up to 200 Gbit/s.
