Optical Cable for DWDM

An advanced optical cable with new fibers is designed to handle Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) transmissions to 1.6 Terabits and higher. The fiber is intended to replace Non-Zero Dispersion Shifted (NZDSF) optical fibers developed several years ago for long distance networks.

The TeraLight optical fiber developed at the company's research and development facility at Conflans, France, overcomes the limitations of the NZDSF optical fibers used for high capacity long distance applications. The fiber was designed with an optimized combination of large effective area combined with a reduced chromatic dispersion slope and improved PMD to better handle high data rates being pursued by network operators.

The fiber has a chromatic dispersion value, which reduces non-linearities. Moreover, the reduced dispersion slope allows operation in a broad range of wavelength regions for 1.6 Terabits or more total throughput with DWDM systems. For example, considering the conventional C-band only, the fiber can transmit 80 channels at 10 Gb/s each with 50 GHz DWDM spacing to provide 800 Gb/s of throughput in real networks.

Alcatel, 44983 Knoll Square, Ashburn, VA 20147 Phone: 703-724-2000