Optimized Design and Challenges for C&L Band Optical Line Systems
Vı́ctor López, Benyuan Zhu, Daniela Moniz, Nelson Costa, João Pedro, Xian Xu, A. Kumpera, Lee Dardis, Jeff Rahn, Steve Sanders
Abstract
Optical communications are the key enabler for the ever-increasing traffic growth as they allow multiplexing a number of carriers onto a single optical fiber. However, network deployments are becoming more challenging due to the large bandwidth increments. Indeed, the fiber planning process is a slow, costly, and strategic activity for network operators, who must decide where to rent or deploy additional capacity. Depending on the long-term view, the network operator will define a fiber plan which may require high capital expenditure (CAPEX) investments to deploy additional multiple fiber pairs between central offices. During the last few years, C&L-band technologies have evolved to a point where they are now strong candidates to extend the fiber lifetime of these high capacity links. This article aims to present the evolution of C&L-band systems from a network design perspective, covering transmission and optical amplifier capabilities, demand optimization phase, showing a record demonstration of 56.4 Tb/s C&L-band 800 km transmission using commercial C&L-band system technology.