A Practical Terabit Approaches?

This week starts off with some interesting news from researchers on the hunt for terabit data speeds.  Nokia Bell Labs, Deutsche Telekom, and the Technical University of Munich say they have taken a big step forward in achieving a 1Tbps circuits that can withstand real network conditions.

The trick to it is yet another new modulation, known as Probabilistic Constellation Shaping, uses QAM formats to boost spectral efficiency.  Rather than use members of a set of constellation points with the same frequency, PCS uses those with high amplitude less often than those with low amplitude, and thus makes the overall signal more resilient.  The result is up to 30% greater reach, which makes the difference necessary to get a few steps closer to the theoretical limit known as the Shannon Limit.

In what form this new technique will make its way into the market is still a question for the future.  100G technologies will remain the workhorse for infrastructure for the foreseeable future of course.  But still, the mythical terabit isn’t so far beyond the horizon now, offering the potential to extend current fiber network capacity to handle the next generation of growth.

The test was performed over an optical fiber span from Deutsche Telekom.  The results are being presented today at the European Conference on Optical Communication in Dusseldorf today.

 

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Categories: Fiber optic cable · Telecom Equipment