The Future of Fiber Optic Communication

There's no doubt that fiber optic communication is our future. Fiber optic communication industry continues to be taking pleasure in amazing growth for more than fifteen years. They are driven by both technology advance and market demand. There are several apparent trends in the introduction of new technology and market. Let us examine probably the most important ones here.

All-Optical Network

All-optical network is a top subject in fiber optic communication niche for on the decade now. Its ultimate goal would be to process all signals within the optical domain with no conversion and controlling to electrical domain whatsoever.

For now at least, most signal routing, processing and switching occur in the electrical domain. Optical signals need to be transformed into electrical signal first, and so the electrical signals are processed, routed and switched for their final destination.

Following the processing, routing and switching, the electrical signals will be converted to optical signals that are then sent over lengthy distances. This method is known as the O-E-O process.

However this O-E-O process seriously limits the rate from the network. Why? Since optical signals can process data considerably faster then today's electronics. The O-E-O process is a bottleneck stopping us from achieving even greater data rates.

This bottleneck produces a significant interest in most-optical systems where no electronics are essential for signal processing, routing and switching. Another big advantage of all-optical network is the fact that since all signal processing, routing and switching occur in optical domain, there's you don't need to switch the electronics when data rates increase. For instance, current fiber optic transmitters and receivers are designed for just one single data rate, thus, they ought to be changed once the data rate increases. This will not be necessary inside a all-optical network.

However, many obstacles still lie within our method to make all-optical network a real possibility. Some functions for example studying headers around the optical signals, switching the optical signal quickly in line with the header content and real-time wave length switching are only a couple of from the serious challenges that should be solved before we may have a true all-optical network.

Multi-Terabit Systems

DWDM paves the way to multi-terabit transmission. The eye in developing multi-terabit systems is driven through the growing accessibility to more bandwidth in fiber optic systems.

One terabit network was accomplished by utilizing 10Gb/s data rate coupled with 100 DWDM channels.

Four terabit network could be accomplished by combing 40Gb/s data rate with 100 DWDM channels too. Scientists move their target to even greater bandwidth with 100Gb/s systems. (Which isn't a real possibility yet, for now at least)

However this type of speed is extremely costly to create and may simply be justified on lengthy-haul systems. However with the price reduction on fiber optic components, products and systems, more bandwidth is near us.