nd Systems, ISCAS 2008, Seattle, WA, IEEE, pp. 3318-3321, 2008. 108. Eshraghian, K., Cho, K.-R, Kavehei, O., Kang, S.-K., Abbott, D., Kang, S.-M., Memristor MOS content addressable memory (MCAM): Hybrid architecture for future high performance search engines, IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems, 99(1), 1-11 (2010). 109. Ditmar, J., Torkelsson, K., Jantsch, A., A dynamically reconfigurable FPGA-based content addressable memory for internet protocol characterization, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer, London, U.K., s.l., Vol. 1896/2000, pp. 19-28, 2000. 110. Altera, Power-Optimized Solutions for Telecom Applications, 2010, White Paper, http://www.altera. com/literature/wp/wp-01089-power-optimized-telecom.pdf (accessed: August 18, 2010). Transmission Systems Architectures and Performances 6.1 Introduction After a long period in which electronics switching was driving down prices while trans- mission via coaxial cables was costly and difficult, with the introduction of optical trans- mission in the early 1990s, the situation completely changed. Although the end of the telecom market bubble (see Chapter 2) was followed by a big crisis influencing the market practically since 2001, it remains the fact that it is possible to transmit via optical fibers very high-capacity signals (like 100 channels at a speed of 10 Gbit/s each) at very long distances (in excess of 2000km); transmission is today an abun- dant resource in the telecommunication networks while switching/routing remains more expensive. This change of paradigm has driven the development of telecommunication networks in the last decade, and it does not seem to end. Thus, the analysis of optical transmission is a key to observe the trends in the telecom- munication market. This chapter is devoted to the analysis of transmission. Since transmission is performed almost only via optical fibers, the chapter deals only with to optical transmission systems for metro and core networks. Access transmission systems will be analyzed 