Alcatel heeft aangekondigd dat het bedrijf een nieuw snelheidsrecord heeft gezet voor onderzeese optische transmissie. Over een glasvezeltje van 321 kilometer werd een bandbreedte van 1,6 terabits bereikt zonder toepassing van repeaters. Verder realiseerde Alcatel een nieuw record door zonder repeater 160 golflengtes over deze afstand te versturen. Het vorige record, tevens op naam van Alcatel, bereikte 1,28Tbit/s over 250km met 32 golflengtes. Alcatel maakte gebruik van zogenaamde cascaded Raman versterking. Deze technologie heeft lagere installatiekosten dan de systemen die momenteel door netwerk operators in gebruik zijn, aldus Alcatel:
Alcatel's innovative use of cascaded Raman amplification utilizes only one high-power and two low-power sources, therefore improving the transmission quality while significantly reducing equipment costs. Raman pumps have been positioned in a cascaded configuration and arranged in the opposite direction of the signal. This ground-breaking method of installing the pumps is made possible using '2nd order pumping'-- in addition to the two pump sources at the standard wavelength of 100 nanometers (nm) below the signal, another pump at 90nm below the pump wavelengths was used. This configuration allows a high-power source to boost two low-power sources, pursuant to the 1st order pumping principle. The two low-power sources then amplifies the transmission signals. This is considerably less expensive than current systems, which require the use of two high-power pumps.
Moreover, in this experiment a record number of 160 wavelengths was transmitted over the unrepeatered distance of 321km, as a result of a reduction in channel spacing from 50 gigahertz (GHz) to 25GHz (or 0.2nm). These wavelengths were transmitted only on the C band where the attenuation is the lowest, paving the way for further developments to increase the bandwidth.
Finally, this achievement demonstrates Alcatel's ability to precisely manage the combination of various types of fibers to optimize Raman gain and the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The SNR is the ratio, between the power of the signal and the noise generated by the transmission. In this experiment, the Pure Silica Core Fiber (PCSF) was combined with Enhanced PSCF (EPSCF) in order to enhance the quality of the transmitted signal.
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