Gomba, Ndadzibaya MasimbaNleya, BakheMutsvangwa, AndrewChidzonga, Richard F.2020-09-082020-09-082020-08Masimba, G., Nleya, B., Mutsvangwa, A., Chidzonga, R. 2020. Evaluation of wavelength congestion in transparent optical transport networks. Presented at: 2020 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Computing and Data Communication Systems (icABCD). Available: doi:10.1109/icabcd49160.2020.9183819http://hdl.handle.net/10321/3472Transparent Optical networks are generally regarded as a possible solution for the provisioning of ultrahigh speed transmission and switching capabilities to accommodate bandwidth hungry applications and services. Most of such applications and services involve streaming of high-definition video. However, since al source and destination pair establishments within a given Transparent optical transport network are assumed to be within optical signal reach, such networks do not incorporate regenerators. The lack of regenerators often leads to a serious degradation of the signal to noise ratio as a result of the effects of physical layer impairments accumulated as it traverses the network. This motivates us to propose and present a Q-factor tool that takes into account the various physical layer impairments. The proposed tool’s efficacy is evaluated by way of simulation.5 penTransparent networksQ-factor toolWavelength congestionBlocking probabilityPath congestionNetwork congestionPhysical impairmentsConference2020-09-0210.1109/icabcd49160.2020.9183819