5 March 2014
Telecommunications and optical networking are going through a welcome resurgence after years of relative stagnation following the telecom crash in the late 1990s and early 2000s. New technological advancements are reinvigorating networks to meet explosive demands from data centers, non-traditional carriers, content delivery networks and ubiquitous video. Trends like Software-Defined Networking (SDN) show great possibilities for enhanced network capabilities, and most vendors now have an SDN story to tout. However, it can be easy to overlook other equally exciting trends in optical networking that are making an even bigger impact today.
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By Vivian (Xi) Chen | Posted: 4 March 2014
The exponential growth of internet traffic at about 2 dB per annum could exhaust the available capacity of single-mode fiber in the near future. But space-division multiplexing (SDM) has been proposed to keep up with capacity improvement. One of the categories of SDM, multi-core fibre (MCF), has multiple individual fibre cores via which signals propagate independently in different fibre cores. The other category of SDM, few-mode fibre (FMF), has one single core in which a few fibre modes are propagating together.
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By Dr. Ioannis Tomkos | Posted: 4 March 2014
Most researchers attending OFC every year rush to attend interesting talks that are presented at the many parallel conference sessions. The vast majority of people also take some time to visit the exhibition space, check out what new products are on display (by 550 exhibitors!), and observe the exciting live demonstrations at “mobile-labs” and the dazzling booths of the major exhibitors.
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By Dr. Ioannis Tomkos | Posted: 24 February 2014
“…so many things I would have done, but clouds got in my way…”
Both Sides, Now by Joni Mitchell, who was ahead of her time predicting the next evolution beyond client-server technology when she released the album “Clouds” in 1969
The future is here, and it’s ready for download. It’s been said that we live in the App Economy, because of the staggering impact that software apps have had on our daily lives. Consider that there were a whopping 50 Billion mobile apps downloaded in 2012, and over 20 million installed daily on Facebook.
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By Dr. Ioannis Tomkos | Posted: 24 February 2014
OFC traditionally focuses on innovations associated with novel photonic devices and subsystems, as well as associated system/network demonstrations. However over the past few years the participants have clearly observed a significant shift in the topics covered by the conference sessions. The applicability and usefulness of advanced electronics in optical communication systems and networks has become evident through a large number of presentations that are focusing on advancements associated with electronic signal processing, FPGAs and ASICs.
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By Vivian (Xi) Chen | Posted: 23 February 2014
Hello, OFC! I’m one of your bloggers Xi Chen (Vivian) for OFC’2014. I will be with you for the following a few months to report inspiring topics or events happen in OFC. I’m a research fellow in The University of Melbourne (Australia), doing research on high capacity and high spectral efficiency fiber optic transmission.
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By Casimer DeCusatis Ph.D. | Posted: 7 February 2014
At the beginning of the new year, it seems that everyone wants to predict the Next Big Thing (NBT) in any given field of human endeavor. In keeping with this trend, I’d like to offer my take on the Top 5 amazing trends that you’ll see at OFC 2014.
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By Casimer DeCusatis Ph.D. | Posted: 5 February 2014
One hot topic for the futurists at OFC 2014 is bound to be the outlook for exascale computing, and the role of optical interconnects in making it a reality.
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By Dr. Ioannis Tomkos | Posted: 3 February 2014
OFC has been always the place where the major future scientific and commercial challenges are discussed extensively. Such discussions have proven to influence the future of the industry, so their impact is huge.
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By Casimer DeCusatis Ph.D. | Posted: 29 January 2014
Some said the world should be in Pearl
Some said in Lisp…
Should we write it all again,
I’d end it with a close-paren
“With apologies to Robert Frost”, from http://xkcd.com/312/
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