Technical Conference: 07 - 11 March 2027
Exhibition: 09 - 11 March 2027
Los Angeles Convention Center | Los Angeles, California, United States

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Technical Conference: 07 - 11 March 2027
Exhibition: 09 - 11 March 2027
Los Angeles Convention Center | Los Angeles, California, United States

Home > 2026 Conference Programs > Short Courses

The Life Cycle of an Optical Network: From Planning to Decommissioning

SC447 - The Life Cycle of an Optical Network: From Planning to Decommissioning

15 Mar 2026
13:00 - 16:00

Short Course Level

Advanced Beginner and Intermediate

Short Course Description

This course walks the attendees through an entire optical network life cycle from an operator’s point of view, from the initial requirements, vendor selection, network design and planning, installation and provisioning, operation and management, and final use as a legacy technology before retiring the network. Frequent referral is made to actual network scenarios. The course will cover a large number of network-related topics, without going into unnecessary depth. These topics will include overall network design including layers above the optical layer, network flexibility, resilience, and reliability. The course will also examine physical layer aspects including power budgets, margins, aging, and practical installation issues. In terms of operational aspects, the course will discuss  different approaches to adding capacity, handling potential technology upgrades within the life cycle of the network, network monitoring, and handling of network failures and fiber breaks. Whilst not excluding older technology solutions, the course will focus on high-speed coherent-based optical core networks and the different challenges arising on the metro side. Practical aspects will be considered including power and space requirements in exchange buildings. Looking into the future, the course will consider to what extent flexibility in the optical layer is important in areas such as flexgrid, optical superchannels, bit-rate variable transponders, and levels of flexibility within the ROADM node. Specific aspects of 400Gb/s optical transport will be included, with references to ZR optics. There will be coverage of so-called multi-band solutions, as the industry looks beyond pure C-band operation. Also included will be an introduction to the capabilities of more automated management solutions such as software defined networking (SDN), especially with regard to integrated solutions with both higher layer transport clients and data center functions. Finally, the course will assess the overall cycle in terms of technology cost-effectiveness and life-time and briefly touch on the added value and challenges of artificial intelligence for telecom operators across key domains and across the life cycle of the network.

Short Course Benefits

By the end of this course you will be able to:

  • Identify key activities comprising whole-life optical network procurement, design, operation, and management
  • Sense the broad time scale for an optical network including reasons for building it and factors affecting how long it should be in operation. 
  • Appreciate different types of optical networks and the range of network operator requirements. Deduce the implications for the solution design.
  • Review the range of optical network technologies available to build networks, covering legacy to future roadmap options. 
  • Understand the need for appropriate resilience and reliability across the network, from devices, sub-systems, network equipment, and overall network operation
  • Explore how unpredictable future traffic drives the need for both network flexibility and capacity growth and appreciate that the scope for both flexibility and growth imply increased network cost
  • Appreciate the impact of the quality of the available optical fiber infrastructure on the physical layer system design, including margin allowance. 
  • Grasp the impact on future networks of new technologies, including flexible transceivers and ROADMs, and finer resolution wavelength grid and a more open control and management based around Software Defined Networking (SDN)

Short Course Audience

This advanced-beginner course is intended for a diverse audience – in fact, anyone wanting a broad operator-based perspective on the optical network journey. No in-depth knowledge will be required – the objective is sufficient breadth that anyone will be able to see where their field of expertise fits into the overall picture.

Instructor

  • Lynn Nelson

    AT&T, United States

    About the Instructor

    Lynn Nelson is Director Member of Technical Staff for AT&T in Middletown, NJ, where she leads the Optical Platforms group responsible for design and development of AT&T’s metro and long-distance optical transport networks. After receiving her PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she worked for Lucent Technologies Bell Labs and OFS prior to joining AT&T in 2006. Her research focused on aspects of long-haul optical transmission systems including fiber nonlinearities, polarization mode dispersion and polarization dependent loss, Raman amplification, wavelength routing, performance monitoring, and space division multiplexing. She has served as OFC Technical Program Co-Chair (2005) and General Co-Chair (2007) and as an Associate Editor for PTL (2009 – 2014). She is an OSA Fellow, a Senior Member of IEEE, and has over 200 publications and holds over 20 patents.