We describe a method of investigating the near-term potential of quantum communication technology for communication networks from the perspective of current networks. For this, we integrate an instance of the quantum network simulator QuNetSim at the link layer into the communication network emulator ComNetsEmu. This novel augmented version of ComNetsEmu is thereby enabled to run arbitrary quantum protocols between any directly connected pair of network hosts. To give an example of the proposed method, we implement the link layer method of generating and storing entanglement while idle, to accelerate data transmission at later times using superdense coding.

翻译：我们从当前网络的角度描述一种调查量子通信技术对通信网络的近期潜力的方法。 为此,我们将连接层的量子网络模拟器 QuNetSim 纳入通信网络模拟器 ComNetsEmu。 ComNetsEmu 的这一新型扩充版本因此得以在任何直接连接的网络主机之间执行任意的量子协议。 举例来说,我们采用了在闲置时生成和存储缠绕的链接层方法,以便在日后使用超常编码加速数据传输。