Integrating QKD in telecommunication networks

Abstract

To date, QKD development has mostly focused in non-shared point-to-point links. Despite its limitations, this is the only technology commercially available today, and this makes it even more expensive and not easily deployable. The integration of QKD with the commercial network infrastructure would open the possibility of a scalable deployment and without requiring a massive initial investment QKD could reach a broader market. Current metro area networks are evolving towards optical, passive infrastructures and this opens up a good window of opportunity for QKD integration, since an all-optical clear path among two points in the network is no longer unfeasible or extremely expensive. However, the simultaneous propagation of quantum and classical signals over a shared link poses important problems due to the spilling of photons coming from classical signals. In this talk I’ll present current architectures for all optical metro networks and discuss our results in the integration of QKD in commercial networks