Optimized Design and Challenges for C&L Band Optical Line Systems

Optical communications are the key enabler for the ever-increasing traffic growth as they allow multiplexing a number of carriers onto a single optical fiber. However, network deployments are becoming more challenging due to the large bandwidth increments. Indeed, the fiber planning process is a slow, costly, and strategic activity for network operators, who must decide where to rent or deploy additional capacity. Depending on the long-term view, the network operator will define a fiber plan which may require high capital expenditure (CAPEX) investments to deploy additional multiple fiber pairs between central offices. During the last few years, C&L-band technologies have evolved to a point where they are now strong candidates to extend the fiber lifetime of these high capacity links. This article aims to present the evolution of C&L-band systems from a network design perspective, covering transmission and optical amplifier capabilities, demand optimization phase, showing a record demonstration of 56.4 Tb/s C&L-band 800 km transmission using commercial C&L-band system technology.