This paper addresses the scalability (in terms of the number of nodes) of a packetswitched WDM all-optical bi-directional ring for metropolitan area networks. The nodes enable adding/dropping packets to/from all WDM channels on the ring. The nodes are optically transparent to data packets that bypass them. At a linespeed of 2.5 Gbps using directly modulated DFB lasers separated by 400 GHz, EDFAs to compensate for optical power loss and Phasars for wavelength multiplexing/demultiplexing it has been experimentally observed that a single ring can support upto 8 transparent nodes
