The global optical communications industry is currently experiencing a surge in demand for fibre to the premises (FTTP) in order to achieve the faster broadband speeds required for the evolving needs of the consumer, who is no longer content to wait before watching the latest episode of their favourite box set.
We work in a young industry: in just 50 years, fibre capacity has increased astronomically. The theoretical has become practical with astonishing regularity. But for all the advance in speed there remains one weak link: contamination on fibre end faces. In the ‘good old days’ of megabits per second, a contaminated end face was not much of a concern. Today, insertion loss and reflectance problems are major concerns as speeds jump from gigabits-per-second to terabits and beyond.
Cost and compatibility can make a compelling case for pushing 100Gb/s bandwidth over a single optical channel, both as individual links and supporting 400Gb/s Ethernet, finds Andy Extance
Robin Mersh takes a look at how the industry is creating next-generation optical access fit for 5G
Technological advances to aid the increasing demand for bandwidth, on the path towards the terabit network, should lead to optical signals that are flexible and adaptive, like water, argues Dr Maxim Kuschnerov and Dr Yin Wang