In the first quarter of this year, the optical communications industry's major event, OFCNFOEC '13, was held in Anaheim, California, with global participation (in excess of 12,000 attendees) in the conference's technical program and exhibit (more than 550 exhibiting companies). More than 800 technical presentations covered a broad range of optical communications technologies from advances in high-...

As Software Defined Networking (SDN) and in particular OpenFlow (OF) availability increases, the desire to extend its use in other scenarios appears. It would be appealing to include substantial parts of the network under OF control but until recently this implied replacing much of the hardware with OF enabled versions. There are some cases, such as access networks in which the benefits could be considerable but deal with a great amount of legacy equipment that is difficult tore place. In this case an alternative method of enabling Odon these devices would be useful. In this paper we describe an architecture and software which could enable OF on many access technologies with minimal changes. The software has been written and tested on a Gigabit Ethernet Passive Optical Network(GEPON). The approach is engineered to be easily ported to any access technology with minimal requirements made on that hardware.

As the global telecommunications industry continues its transformation, we have been witnessing a steady stream of advances in all communications technologies from optical transport to access networks. However, worldwide attention to access network deployments with the entire global industry's concerted effort on standards compliant product development has been most notable. Although we very recently, in February 2011, devoted a special OFC/NFOEC '11 supplement to passive optical network (PON) advances, we have selected PONs as our theme again in this Optical Communications Series (OCS) issue in recognition of this continuing worldwide focus on PON technologies. Two excellent examples of this global focus on PONs are the gigabit PON (GPON) optical network unit (ONU) certification timetable announced by Broadband Forum at their third quarter 2011 meetings held in Shanghai, China, during the week of September 19, 2011, and the high level of participation at the FTTH Council Conference & Expo held in Orlando, Florida, dur ing the week of September 26, 2011. In this issue, we have selected three contributions that address 10 Gb/s Ethernet PON (10G-EPON) performance, dynamic spectrum management in existing PONs, and technology advances toward next-generation PONs (NG PONs).

The articles in this special section focus on the optic of optical access networks.

In this issue, we wish to inform our readers of an important change. After a long and successful service as OCS (Optical Communications Series) editor, Hideo Kuwahara has departed to start his term as the president of the IEEE Photonics Society in January of this year. We take this opportunity to express our deep appreciation for his dedicated service to the OCS and wish him well in his new role as IEEE Photonics Society President.

Since OFC/NFOEC '12, the premier global communications industry event of the year, we have been seeing a steady stream of news regarding field trials and implementations of 100 Gb/s optical transport systems in carrier networks. As announced in our May 2012 OCS editorial, global popularity of this topic led us to designate high-speed optical transport as the feature topic for the November 2012 OCS...

Telecommunications service providers continue to focus on providing additional network capacity to meet growing needs for bandwidth in their access, metro, and long-haul networks. Global optical transport industry suppliers have accelerated their efforts over the past three years on improving spectral efficiency while reducing cost per bit. While the industry has witnessed the growing use of advanced modulation formats such as DP-QPSK and coherent detection, a broad-based search for approaches to increase transmission speeds for each optical channel, a larger number of wavelength- division multiplexing (WDM) channels, and space multiplexing over a larger number of fiber cores is in progress.

As we move further into the second decade of the 21st century, the transformation of the global telecommunications industry continues via advancements in all communications technologies from optical transport to access networks. We devoted a special issue in February 2011, a special OFCNFOEC '11 supplement, to advances in passive optical network (PON) technologies, and we selected PONs as our theme again in the November OCS (Optical Communications Series) issue in recognition of the continuing worldwide focus on PON technologies.

The global telecommunications industry entered the year 2011 with estimates of a shrinking 2010 optical communications equipment market. However, the largest global optical communications conference of its kind, OFC/NFOEC 2011, held in Los Angeles, California, during the first week of March 2011, displayed an upbeat mood for the industry with attendance that exceeded 11,000, and represented increased participation in both the technical conference and the exhibit. All segments of the industry from service providers to large systems and components suppliers, and academic and industrial R&D organizations were represented in a variety of conference venues.

In this month's Optical Communications Series (OCS), we have selected contributions addressing developments that are needed toward meeting the continuing growth in bandwidth demand. As the global economy?s recovery continues, telecommunications service providers and suppliers compete to announce initiatives addressing the current pace of global demand growth for Internet, video, TV, and telecommunications services along with forecasts for future needs.

The global telecommunications industry continues its transformation in network architectures and services. In the past 10 years, we have seen major shifts in technology innovations from optical transport to last-mile access networks. While synchronous optical network/synchronous digital hierarchy (SONET/SDH) was the center of attention for service providers and their suppliers in the 1980-1995 timeframe, we have witnessed the growth of wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) to meet bandwidth growth fueled by fiber to the x (FTTx) video and internet service demand starting at about 1995.

In this month s Optical Communications Series (OCS), we have selected contributions addressing developments in services toward meeting the continuing growth in bandwidth demand. As the global economy s slow recovery continues, we receive news/announcements of service provider and supplier initiatives addressing the brisk pace of global demand growth for Internet, video, TV, and telecommunications services. Moreover, national and local governments continue to develop programs and policies, such as the U.S. Federal Communications Commission s Connecting America initiative, to facilitate availability of broadband communications services. As telecommunications networks continue to develop, optical communications technologies promise to enable truly broadband communications-based services in such applications as long-distance education and tele-medicine.