Technical Conference: 15 - 19 March 2026
Exhibition: 17 - 19 March 2026
Los Angeles Convention Center | Los Angeles, California, USA

Technical Conference: 15 - 19 March 2026
Exhibition: 17 - 19 March 2026
Los Angeles Convention Center | Los Angeles, California, USA

Emerging Optical Network Technologies towards 2030

SC444 - Emerging Optical Network Technologies towards 2030

16 Mar 2026
08:30 - 12:30

Short Course Level

Intermediate

Short Course Description

This course covers emerging optical network technologies towards 2030, which include:

  • International standards on optical networks towards 2030
  • Home network technologies such as fiber-to-the-room (FTTR)
  • Optical access network technologies such as 50G-PON
  • Metro network technologies based on ROADM and OXC
  • Long-haul network technologies such as probability constellation shaping (PCS)
  • Inter-data center network technologies for 800G/1.6T ZR/ZR+
  • Intra-data center network technologies for 800G/1.6T FR/LR
  • Advances in beyond-1Tb/s and fine-grain optical transport network (OTN)
  • Future optical network evolution towards 2030


The fundamental understanding of these emerging optical network technologies, as well as their state-of-the-art realizations, will be presented and discussed. This short course is well suited for researchers, engineers and graduate students who wish to gain a broad and deep understanding of modern optical network technologies and standards.

Short Course Benefits

Students will become familiarized with the following emerging topics:

  • F5G standardization and use cases 
  • Home network technologies such as fiber-to-the-room (FTTR)
  • Optical access network technologies such as 50G-PON
  • Metro network technologies based on ROADM and OXC
  • Long-haul network technologies such as probability constellation shaping (PCS)
  • Inter-data center network technologies for 800G/1.6T ZR
  • Intra-data center network technologies for 800G/1.6T DR/FR/LR
  • Service-oriented optical network based on fine-grain optical transport network (fgOTN)
  • Distributed optical fiber sensing technologies for F5G networks
  • Future F5G evolution toward 2030​

Short Course Audience

This course is intended for a diverse audience including but not limited to researchers, engineers, policymakers, professors, and graduate students who are interested in how optical communication is evolving in the F5G era.  Some basic knowledge of optical networks, standards, optical transmission technologies, photonics, and digital signal processing will help in better understanding the course but is not a prerequisite.

  • Xiang Liu

    Huawei Technologies, China

    About the Instructor

    Dr. Xiang Liu is the Chief Scientist of Optical Communications Standards in Huawei Technologies. He has been actively contributing to international standardization efforts in ITU-T SG15, ETSI ISG-F5G, IEEE 802.3, BBF, and OIF. He had been Vice President for Optical Transport and Access at Futurewei Technologies and a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at Bell Labs.  He received the Ph.D. degree in applied physics from Cornell University in 2000. As a top-ranked Google Scholar in optical communications, he has authored/coauthored more than 350 journal and conference papers and holds over 100 US patents. He is the author of a technical book entitled “Optical Communications in the 5G Era”. He has served as a Technical Program Co-Chair of OFC 2016 and a General Co-Chair of OFC 2018. He is a Fellow of Optica and IEEE.