Back-bone all-optical

networks

Digital and optically connected world

All information is digital

All back-bone digital networks are optical
Traffic will grow mainly through wireless access
Optical network must become ELASTIC
Carries DO NOT WANT to substitute installed
equipment
Thanks to modern optical transmission technology
the paradigm for optical networks has dramatically
changed

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 Pan-EU optical network

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Italian optical network

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North America Optical Network

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Undersea optical cables

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 Optical communications: state-of-the art

Several fibers/cable
Let’s assume Nf=100
It means Nfp=50 bidirectional fiber
pairs
Overall fiber cable bidirectional
capacity:

C  Rb  N ch  N fp  400 100  50  2 106 Gbit/s

2 million Gbitps !!!!!

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How many internet connections?

1 Gbps corresponds to 100 internet connections at
10 Mbitps
So, at the state of the art, a fully spectrally
populated fiber link including 100 fibers/cable may
carry up to

200 million internet

connections at 10 Mbitps
Quite impressive, isn’t it?
And we are far from saturation….
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 What next?

In modern fibers the low-loss available spectral window

is roughly 30-40 THz
We are currently exploiting only the C-band because of
amplifier bandwidth
A realistic mid-term forecast is for Bopt=15 THz
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What next?
So, we can envision a more than 3-times bandwidth
extension
We can also envision a reduction of channel spacing
down to the symbol rate  pure NyWDM
Let’s redo some math…
Bopt=16 THz
Nch= 16000/32=500 channel per fiber

C  Rb  N ch  N fp  400  500  50  10 106 Gbit/s

1 billion internet connections

at 10 Mbitps
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 The highway metaphor

 We have - or we’ll have soon - the availability of

huge highways for IP traffic
 Outside the highways we have an increasing dimension
web of local roads
 The challenge for the future is to be able to fill
the highways!
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The internet galaxy

Internet is the union of back-bone and

access networks
Back bone networks are made of high
capacity optical links
Access technologies are a mix of
wireless and wired solutions
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 How many internet users?

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http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/service-provider/ip-
ngn-ip-next-generation-network/white_paper_c11-481360.html
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 Overall IP traffic
 Global IP traffic has increased fivefold over the past five years, and
will increase threefold over the next five years. Overall, IP traffic
will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23 percent
from 2014 to 2019.
 Busy-hour Internet traffic is growing more rapidly than average
Internet traffic.
Global IP traffic

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Which applications?
 The sum of all forms of IP video, which includes Internet video, IP VoD, video files
exchanged through file sharing, video-streamed gaming, and videoconferencing, will
continue to be in the range of 80 to 90 percent of total IP traffic. Globally, IP video traffic
will account for 80 percent of traffic by 2019
Global IP traffic

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 Wireless vs. wired
 Traffic from wireless and mobile devices will exceed traffic from wired devices by 2016. By
2016, wired devices will account for 47 percent of IP traffic, and Wi-Fi and mobile devices
will account for 53 percent of IP traffic. In 2014, wired devices accounted for the majority
of IP traffic, at 54 percent.
Global IP traffic

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Optical network: a weighted graph

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 The legacy
paradigm: IMDD
and regeneration
at each node
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The legacy paradigm

Transmission techniques based on direct-detection:

mainly IMDD
In-line dispersion compensation was mandatory
Optimized dispersion maps
Optical links were like sealed data-pipelines with a
given capacity
No way to implement all-optical networks
Complete regeneration of traffic at each node

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 The legacy paradigm: node-to-node link

xNspan
Node Node
DCU Fiber DCU DCU
WDM WDM
Pre InLine Post
TX OA RX

Optimized dispersion map

Sealed point-to-point data pipeline
Given rate
No transparent wavelength routing in nodes

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The legacy paradigm: node

Node
Fiber traffic Fiber
pair pair
O O
E E
O Electronic O
data
management
Fiber (IP layer) Fiber
pair pair
O O
E E
O O

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 Some definitions

Traffic matrix
It is a squared matrix including the connection requests
between nodes. It may be static or varying with time
Network blocking
It happens when a request coming from a traffic matrix
is not satisfied
Routing wavelength assignment (RWA) algorithms
They are mathematical description of how the
connection requests coming from the traffic matrix are
satisfied

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The legacy paradigm: analysis and optimization

Because the physical layer was able to deliver only given-

capacity data pipelines network optimization was carried
on independently of the physical layer
Practically, the so-called WDM layer was considered as a
set of lightpaths with given-capacity connecting nodes
Number of lightpaths depended on number of fiber pairs
RWA algorithms were developed in order to satisfy the
traffic matrix and to minimize blocking
Optimization is possible only on few-nodes networks
In general the so-called heuristic optimization method
was applied

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 A novel paradigm:
multilevel modulation
formats and transparent
wavelegth routing

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The novel paradigm

Multilevel modulation formats with coherent receivers

DSP at TX/Rx enabling software-defined modulation
formats and consequently elastic transponders
No need for in-line DCU
Closed-form expression for propagation impairments
Possibility to perform transparent wavelength routing
at nodes

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 Optical Node

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Optical node

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 Optical link

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Equivalent span

ASE
noise
WDM
AS G + + Rx
Tx
NLI
ASE noise PSD introduced at each span

N 0, ASE  F G  1hf 0  FGhf 0  PASE  N 0, ASE Rs W

NLI PSD introduced at each span

 PNLI  N 0, NLI Rs W

1
N 0, NLI   NLI Pch3
Rs

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 Worst case

 2 2 
   2 RS  Bopt  K S 2
  2 Leff
2
16  1 
 NLI  log e       2
27  2   K S RS  
 2 Rs2 W 
 

NLI depends on the spectral occupancy

In order to be conservative we suppose full spectral
occupancy that maximizes NLI: all channel turned on

Bopt Bopt
N ch  
f K S RS

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LOGO network plan

LOGO: local-optimized global-optimized

On each link we suppose to operate at the optimal
power per channel maximizing the OSNR

Pch,opt  3
FAS hf 0 Rs
W
2 NLI

2 1 1
OSNRNL,max 
2 NLI FAS hf 0 Rs 2
3
3M

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 The OSNR as lighpath QoT

 The edges of the graph are weighted with the Optical Noise to Signal Ratio
(ONSR) degradation that they introduce.
 This term, , is computed using the Incoherent GN-Model

LP OSRN # of Fiber Links # of spans of the j-th fiber

(1)

 ONSR degradation is additive span by span, thus a LP transparently traversing Nf

optical links has a total OSNR that is given by Eq. (1)
 The total OSNR can be used as path metric: paths having minimum ONSR
degradation have maximum OSNR, thus maximum QoT.
 We can use this information for routing purposes.
 The total OSNR of each allocated LP is used to determine the maximum bit rate at
which it can operate
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Elastic transponders

In transponders the parameter that is typically given is

the symbol rate Rs determined by the state-of-the-art
of electronic equipment
The actual bit rate is given by the cardinality of
modulation format determining the number of bit-per-
symbol (BpS)
Thanks to the DSP at Tx and Rx BpS can be dynamically
taylored to the lightpath QoT defined by the OSNR

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 Elastic transponders: pure formats
Given the modulation format: BERT  OSNRT
BpS
PM-64QAM: 12
PM-32QAM: 10

PM-16QAM: 8

PM-8QAM: 6

PM-QPSK: 4

PM-BPSK: 2

0
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OSNRT35

Elastic transponders: hybrid formats

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Target OSNR in RSG [dB]

15

10

FECHD
5
FECSD

2 4 6 8 10 12
Bits per symbol

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 Monte Carlo analysis

Monte Carlo methods are a broad class of

computational algorithms that rely on
repeated random sampling to obtain numerical results.
Monte Carlo methods vary, but tend to follow a
particular pattern:
Define a domain of possible inputs
Generate inputs randomly from a probability
distribution over the domain
Perform a deterministic computation on the inputs
Aggregate the results and possibly derive numerically
their statistics

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Statistical Network Assessment Process

St ar t
i =1

i -t h M ont e Car l o r un

N ode-t o-N ode

L i ght pat hs’ St at ist ical Per mut at i on of
Demand L P all ocat i on or der
M at r ix

Net wor k
Topol ogy and RWA up t o block ing or full
Physi cal L ayer al locat i on
Char act er i st ics

RWA Net wor k Per for mances

Char act er ist i cs Evaluat i on (R - l ink
(Rout ing b,λ
Pol icy - …) sat ur at i on - …)

Tr ansmi ssion
Techni que i=i +1

No
i > NMC

Yes

St at i st i cal Assessment of
Net wor k Per for mances

St op

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 Average bit-rate per lightpath

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Elastic Transponder Comparison

 Then we consider the performance difference for two elastic

transponder technologies (TDHMF vs PM-m-QAM)
 For both cases we performed the analysis with and without nonlinear
interferences (NLI) to evaluate their impact at a network level

 NLI must be included in the

network analysis to avoid large
overestimation of the
performances, that are
particularly large for input
power larger than the optimal
one
 TDHMF outperforms PM-M-QAM of
23% at optimal launch power
 TDHMF -> 211 Gbps
 PM-m-QAP -> 172 Gbps

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 Average link saturation vs. different RWA

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What next?

Flexible grid
Presently and during next year carrier will aim at
exploiting fixe-grid WDM optical transmission
When it will be saturated, they will migrate to flexible
grid optical transmission where each channel may have a
different spectral occupation, enabling finer granularity
in traffic matrix and consequent better network
exploitation
Bandwidth enlargement
Another open and hot issue will be the enlargement of
the exploited optical bandwidth

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