• Technical Conference:  24 – 28 March 2024
  • Exhibition: 26 – 28 March 2024
  • San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, California, USA

Is It Really Game Over for the Quest to Approach Fiber Capacity Limits?

Sunday, 05 March, 13:00 – 15:30

Room 7AB

Description:

After a decade of intense research and animated discussions around new approaches to increase the spectral efficiency (SE) of single-mode optical fiber transmission systems, we now see a significant slow-down in achievable SE gains as improvements become more challenging and costly. Therefore, the question of improving system SE therefore appears to be beyond the scope of just modem improvements for the first time in many years. As a result, the balance between optical transmission power, SE gains, and investment cost needed to develop more advanced solutions is ever so harder to strike. Yet, no one knows with absolute certainty how much fiber capacity gain can be achieved in the coming years and with what level of implementation complexity.

This workshop will address a fundamental question: is it still worth trying to squeeze more SE out of optical fiber transmission systems? And if not, what are the most attractive alternative options to keep up with the current network capacity demand? Other questions to discuss in this workshop will include the following:

  • Increasing number of spatial paths (more fibers per cables, new fiber designs, etc.) is promising, but is it the only way forward?
  • Is it worth realizing the remaining SE gains, and which tools should we use? Are ultra-wide bandwidth solutions also valid contenders?
  • What is the practical limit on bit-rate per wavelength (1.6Tb/s, 3.2Tb/s, etc.)? Are there any options to overcome this limit?
  • Pluggable transceivers have somewhat reduced performance with significantly reduced power and size. Will they enable the next wave of capacity growth throughout the network?
  • How much network capacity growth do we need in different parts of the networks (today and in the future)? Should we think about network capacity vs. p-t-p route capacity?

Organizers

Gabriele Liga, Eindoven University of Technology, Netherlands

Sergejs Makovejs, Corning Incorporated, UnitedKingdom

David Milar, Infinera, USA

Session 1 Speakers

Cristian Antonelli, UnivAQ, Italy

Marco Secondini, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna , Italy

Metodi Yankov, University of Denmark, Denmark

Jeff Rahn, Meta, USA

Massimilliano Salsi, Google, USA

Glenn Wellbrock, Verizon, USA

Session 2 Speakers

John Downie, Corning Incorporated, USA

Takemi Hasegawa, Sumitomo Electric Industries, Japan

Eduardo Mateo, NEC Corporation, Japan

Kishore Kota, Marvell Technology, USA

Rob Maher, Infinera, USA

Vahid Aref, Nokia, Canada