dynamic packet transport (DPT)

Dynamic Packet Transport (DPT) is a method developed by Cisco for data transmission in ring systems and can be seen as an alternative to SDH/Sonet. A DPT ring consists of two counter-rotating optical fibers to which more than 50 nodes can be connected and whose length can be several 100 kilometers. Each ring is used to transmit payload and control data.

A DPT node sends data packets with user data in one direction and the corresponding control data on the second ring in the opposite direction. Each node decides independently in which direction it sends which data. In order to be able to provide the optimal bandwidth for the user data transmission, the DPT node will choose the path for the network data in which the fewest nodes are located.

Dynamic Packet Transport uses the Spatial Reuse Protocol( SRP) in the MAC layer, which is independent of the transport layer and can use a wide variety of physical infrastructures such as dark fiber, Wavelength Division Multiplexing(WDM) or SDH paths.