ECOC 2023 industry reflections

Gazettabyte is asking industry figures for their thoughts after attending the recent ECOC show in Glasgow. In particular, what developments and trends they noted, what they learned and what, if anything, surprised them. Here are the first responses from BT, Huawei, and Teramount. 

Andrew Lord, Senior Manager, Optical Networks and Quantum Research at BT

I was hugely privileged to be the Technical Co-Chair of ECOC in Glasgow, Scotland and have been working on the event for over a year. The overriding impression was that the industry is fully functioning again, post-covid, with a bumper crop of submitted papers and a full exhibition. Chairing the conference left little time to indulge in content. I will need to do my regular ECOC using the playback option. But specific themes struck me as interesting.

There were solid sessions and papers around free space optics, including satellite. The activities here are more intense than we would typically see at ECOC. This reflects a growing interest and the specific expertise within the Scottish research community. Similarly, more quantum-related papers demonstrated how quantum is integrating into the mainstream optical industry.

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ECOC 2022 Reflections - Part 1

Gazettabyte is asking industry and academic figures for their thoughts after attending ECOC 2022, held in Basel, Switzerland. In particular, what developments and trends they noted, what they learned, and what, if anything, surprised them.

In Part 1, Infinera's David Welch, Cignal AI's Scott Wilkinson, University of Cambridge's Professor Seb Savory, and Huawei's Maxim Kuschnerov share their thoughts.

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Huawei sets transmission record with new modulator

Coherent discourse: Part 1

A paper from Huawei and Sun Yat-Sen University in the January issue of the Optica journal describes a thin-film lithium niobate modulator. The modulator enabled a world-record coherent optical transmission, sending nearly 2 terabits of data over a single wavelength.

Maxim Kuschnerov

Much of the industry’s focus in recent years has been to fit coherent optical technology within a pluggable module.

Such pluggables allow 400-gigabit coherent interfaces to be added to IP routers and switches, serving the needs of the data centre operators and telecom operators.

But research labs of the leading optical transport vendors continue to advance high-end coherent systems beyond 800-gigabit-per-wavelength transmissions.

Optical transport systems from Ciena, Infinera and Huawei can send 800-gigabit wavelengths using a symbol rate of 96-100 gigabaud (GBd).

Acacia Communications, part of Cisco, detailed late last year the first 1.2-terabit single-wavelength coherent pluggable transceiver that will operate at 140GBd, twice the symbol rate of 400-gigabit modules such as 400ZR. 

Now Huawei has demonstrated in the lab a thin-film lithium niobate modulator that supports a symbol rate of 220GBd and beyond.

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Books read in 2021: Part 1

Each year Gazettabyte asks industry figures to pick their reads of the year. Paul Brooks and Maxim Kuschnerov kick off this year's recommended reads. 

Dr. Paul Brooks, Optical Transport Director, VIAVI Solutions

Having spent a very happy time serving in the Royal Navy, I am always reading about all things connected with its history.

As a young midshipman, I managed to sleep through many of the history lessons at BRNC Dartmouth so I am using my spare time to catch up on the lessons I missed all those years ago.

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Infinera’s ICE6 sends 800 gigabits over a 950km link

Infinera has demonstrated the coherent transmission of an 800-gigabit signal across a 950km span of an operational network.

Robert ShoreInfinera used its Infinite Capacity Engine 6 (ICE6), comprising an indium-phosphide photonic integrated circuit (PIC) and its FlexCoherent 6 coherent digital signal processor (DSP). 

The ICE6 supports 1.6 terabits of traffic: two channels, each supporting up to 800-gigabit of data. 

The trial, conducted over an unnamed operator’s network in North America, sent the 800-gigabit signal as an alien wavelength over a third-party line-system carrying live traffic.

“We have proved not only the state of our 800-gigabit with ICE6 but also the distances it can achieve,” says Robert Shore, senior vice president of marketing at Infinera.

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ECOC 2019 industry reflections

Gazettabyte is asking industry figures for their thoughts after attending the recent ECOC show, held in Dublin. In particular, what developments and trends they noted, what they learned and what, if anything, surprised them. Here are the first responses from Huawei, OFS Fitel and ADVA.  

James Wangyin, senior product expert, access and transmission product line at Huawei  

At ECOC, one technology that is becoming a hot topic is machine learning. There is much work going on to model devices and perform optimisation at the system level.

And while there was much discussion about 400-gigabit and 800-gigabit coherent optical transmissions, 200-gigabit will continue to be the mainstream speed for the coming three-to-five years.  

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Books in 2018 - Part 2

Some more books consumed in 2018, as recommended by Maxim Kuschnerov and Andrew Schmitt.

Maxim Kuschnerov, senior R&D manager at Huawei.

It is hard to believe the book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff was published in 2018. Judging by what has happened since Trump’s inauguration, this recollection of his first days in the White House seems outdated. But it was fun to read while the memory of the election was still fresh. It is hard to judge whether all the book’s sources are truthful but the main message is certainly not too far off.

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