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Abstract
The City and County of Denver, which owns and operates the new Denver International Airport, selected a 5,300-mile fiber optic network using a fault-tolerant synchronous optical network as the backbone of the airport's $40-million communications system. Managed by US West, the network features a full line of SONET transmission systems and network management software. SONET technology was used because its ring and sub-ring transport speeds can be upgraded to meet growing traffic demands and new technologies without installing additional fiber, and because the network can be expanded easily to add new buildings or concourses. Although the network is designed primarily for voice and point-to-point data services, it accomodates a wide range of networking protocols and architecture requirements.