Performance Comparison of Single-Sideband Direct Detection Nyquist-Subcarrier Modulation and OFDM

Direct detection transceivers offer advantages, including low cost and complexity, in short- and medium-haul links. We carried out studies seeking to identify the signal formats which offer the highest information spectral densities and maximum transmission distances for direct detection links. The performance of two spectrally efficient optical signal formats, single-sideband (SSB) Nyquist pulse-shaped subcarrier modulation (SCM) and SSB orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM), are compared by means of simulations. The comparison is performed for a range of wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) net information spectral densities up to 2.0 b/s/Hz by varying the signal bandwidth, modulation cardinality, and WDM channel spacing. The signal formats' tolerance to signal-signal beating interference, resulting from square-law detection, is investigated, and the Nyquist-SCM format is found to suffer lower penalties from this nonlinearity at high information spectral densities. In 7 × 28 Gb/s WDM transmission at 2.0 b/s/Hz (with electronic predistortion and EDFA-only amplification), Nyquist-SCM signals can be transmitted over distances of up to 720 km of standard SMF in comparison to a maximum of 320 km with the OFDM signal format

Live Migration Downtime Analysis of a VNF Guest for a Proposed Optical FMC Network Architecture

Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) implies use of a shared optical fronthaul network infrastructure able to carry transparently both fixed and mobile traffic including Wi-Fi, Mobile and fixed Ethernet. Network Function Virtualization (NFV) is a main enabler for FMC using a shared infrastructure for fixed and mobile gateways. Live migration, a virtualization key-feature, offers load-balancing, increased energy efficiency, application elasticity and other worthy advantages. This paper presents the evaluation of migrating a VNF over an FMC infrastructure. Our results show that, performing a livemigration over a dedicated connection yielded zero downtime and met a benchmark delay. The following scenario, where the ongoing connection is re-routed on a different optical path, shows the successful completion of the migration with an increase in delay of 2.4 seconds (22% higher than the benchmark) and only 2.1 seconds downtime Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) implies use of a shared optical fronthaul network infrastructure able to carry transparently both fixed and mobile traffic including Wi-Fi, Mobile and fixed Ethernet. Network Function Virtualization (NFV) is a main enabler for FMC using a shared infrastructure for fixed and mobile gateways. Live migration, a virtualization key-feature, offers load-balancing, increased energy efficiency, application elasticity and other worthy advantages. This paper presents the evaluation of migrating a VNF over an FMC infrastructure. Our results show that, performing a live migration over a dedicated connection yielded zero downtime and met a benchmark delay. The following scenario, where the ongoing connection is re-routed on a different optical path, shows the successful completion of the migration with an increase in delay of 2.4 seconds (22% higher than the benchmark) and only 2.1 seconds downtime

Spectrally Efficient WDM Nyquist Pulse-Shaped 16-QAM Subcarrier Modulation Transmission With Direct Detection

The ability to transmit signals with high information spectral density (ISD) using low-complexity and cost-effective transceivers is essential for short- and medium-haul optical communication systems. Consequently, spectrally efficient direct detection transceiver-based solutions are attractive for such applications. In this paper, we experimentally demonstrate the wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) transmission of 7×12 GHz-spaced dispersion pre-compensated Nyquist pulse-shaped 16-QAM subcarrier modulated channels operating at a net bit rate of 24 Gb/s per channel, and achieving a net optical ISD of 2.0 b/s/Hz. The direct detection receiver used in our experiment consisted of a single-ended photodiode and a single analog-to-digital converter. The carrier-to-signal power ratio at different values of optical signal-to-noise ratio was optimized to maximize the receiver sensitivity performance. The transmission experiments were carried out using a recirculating fiber loop with uncompensated standard single-mode fiber and EDFA-only amplification. The maximum achieved transmission distances for single channel and WDM signals were 727 and 323 km below the bit-error ratio of 3.8 × 10-3, respectively. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest achieved ISD for WDM transmission in direct detection links over such distances

Spectrally Efficient WDM Nyquist Pulse-Shaped Subcarrier Modulation Using a Dual-Drive Mach-Zehnder Modulator and Direct Detection

High data transmission capacity is increasingly needed in shortand medium-haul optical communication links. Cost-effective wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) transceiver architectures, achieving high information spectral densities (ISDs) (>1 b/s/Hz) and using low-complexity direct detection receivers are attractive solutions for such links. In this paper, we assess the use of dual-drive Mach-Zehnder modulators (DD-MZMs), and compare them with in-phase quadrature (IQ)-modulators for generating spectrally-efficient single sideband Nyquist pulse-shaped 16-QAM subcarrier (N-SCM) modulation format signals. The impact of the extinction ratio (ER) of a modulator on the optical sideband suppression ratio (OSSR) was investigated for the SSB signals in WDM systems, together with the resulting impact on inter-channel crosstalk penalties. First, in back-to-back operation, an IQ-modulator with an ER of 30 dB and a DD-MZM with an ER of 18 dB were experimentally compared in a 6×25 Gb/s WDM system by varying the channel spacing. Following this comparison, 16 GHz-spaced 6×25 Gb/s WDM signal transmission was experimentally demonstrated using the DD-MZM. The experiment was performed using a recirculating loop with uncompensated standard single-mode fiber (SSMF) and EDFA-only amplification. The maximum achievable transmission distances for single channel and WDM signals were found to be 565 and 242 km, respectively, at a net optical ISD of 1.5 b/s/Hz. This is the first experimental comparison of such modulator types for SSB N-SCM signal generation and the highest achieved ISD using a DD-MZM in direct-detection WDM transmission

Athermal colorless C-band optical transmitter system for passive optical networks

This paper reports an uncooled transmitter system using a digital super-mode (DS) distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) tunable laser, which is able to act as an athermal, wavelength agnostic transmitter suitable for wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) passive optical network (PON) applications. An open-loop laser current control algorithm is designed to compensate autonomously for wavelength drift, thus allowing constant operating wavelength to be achieved regardless of ambient temperature. An improved wavelength accuracy of ±3 GHz is achieved when using low bandwidth feedback from the central office using information from a centralized shared wavelength locker. The entire laser start-up, channel selection and subsequent wavelength control is autonomous and has been implemented on micro-controllers and field programmable gate arrays. We demonstrate a three channel WDM-PON system comprising an uncooled packaged DS-DBR laser in the presence of two neighboring interfering channels. Error free transmission over 40 km single mode fiber of 10 Gb/s externally modulated NRZ data, is achieved for each of 48 C-band channels on the 100 GHz ITU grid. Successful athermal operation is demonstrated by sweeping the ambient temperature of the laser from 15 to 70 °C with a maximum wavelength deviation for any channel of no more than 0.1 nm.This work has been supported by the Technology Strategy Board, UK and by the German ministry for education and research, through the EU ERA-NET+ projects PIANO+ IMPACT (BMBF grant: 13N11434) and TUCAN (BMBF grant: 13N11573). We also acknowledge the support of the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council via the INTERNET project.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from IEEE via http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/JLT.2014.235405

Field demonstration of a tunable WDM-PON system with novel SFP+ modules and centralized wavelength control

We report on a demonstration of a novel tunable WDM-PON system over 25km of field deployed fiber. We show error-free operation at 1 GbE with sensitivity better than -30dBm and centralized control of the ONU wavelengths.This work has been supported by the EU ERA-NET+ projects PIANO+ IMPACT and PIANO+ TUCAN co-funded by the German BMBF, the UK Technology Strategy Board and the Austrian FFG. Also support from the UK EPSRC INTERNET project is acknowledged.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from OAS Publishing via http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/OFC.2015.M2A.

Experimental Investigation of Nonlinear Fourier Transform Based Fibre Nonlinearity Characterisation

First experimental results on the characterisation of the nonlinear fibre coefficient using nonlinear Fourier transforms are reported for a 1000 km NZDSF fibre link. No special training signals were used. Instead, conventional pulse-shaped QPSK symbols were transmitted.Accepted Author ManuscriptTeam Sander Wahl