The evolution of optical networking

An upcoming issue of the Proceeedings of the IEEE will be dedicated solely to the topic of optical networking. This, says the lead editor, Professor Ioannis Tomkos at the Athens Information Technology Center, is a first in the journal's 100-year history.  The issue, entitled The Evolution of Optical Networking, will be published in either April or May and will have a dozen invited papers. 

One topic that will change the way we think about optical networks is flexible or elastic optical networks.

Professor Ioannis Tomkos

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OFC/NFOEC 2012: Technical paper highlights

Source: The Optical Society

Novel technologies, operators' experiences with state-of-the-art optical deployments and technical papers on topics such as next-generation PON and 400 Gigabit and 1 Terabit optical transmission are some of the highlights of the upcoming OFC/NFOEC conference and exhibition, to be held in Los Angeles from March 4-8, 2012. Here is a taste of some of the technical paper highlights.

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R&D: At home or abroad?

ECI Telecom chose to set up its latest R&D site in Israel. Gazettabyte met with Chaim Urbach, ECI’s head of global R&D operations, to discuss why it decided to locate its latest site in Israel, and how the company can compete with the leading telecom players that have considerably larger R&D teams and budgets.

Omer Industrial Park in the Negev, Israel; the location of ECI Telecom's latest R&D centre.

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Terabit Consortium embraces OFDM

A project to develop optical networks using terabit light paths has been announced by a consortium of Israeli companies and universities. The Tera Santa Consortium will spend 3-5 years developing orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based terabit optical networking equipment.

“This project is very challenging and very important”

Shai Stein, Tera Santa Consortium

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Optical transmission beyond 100Gbps

Briefing: High-speed optical transmission. 

Part 3: What's next?

Given the 100 Gigabit-per-second (Gbps) optical transmission market is only expected to take off from 2013, addressing what comes next seems premature. Yet operators and system vendors have been discussing just this issue for at least six months.

And while it is far too early to talk of industry consensus, all agree that optical transmission is becoming increasingly complex. As Karen Liu, vice president, components and video technologies at market research firm Ovum, observed at OFC 2010, bandwidth on the fibre is no longer plentiful.

“We need to keep a very close eye that we are not creating more problems than we are solving.”

Brandon Collings, JDS Uniphase.

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Ofidium to enter 100Gbps module market using OFDM

Briefing: High-speed optical transmission.

Part 1: The start-up

Ofidium is a 100 Gigabit start-up that refuses to follow the herd.

While the optical industry has chosen polarisation-multiplexing quadrature phase-shift keying (PM-QPSK) for 100 Gigabit-per-second (Gbps) transmission, the Australian start-up is developing a module based on orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation.

 "For data rates higher than 100Gbps, it [OFDM] is the only way to go"

Jonathan Lacey, CEO

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