Optical fiber transmission systems have become critical in facilitating the rapid growth in high-speed services in the consumer and commercial markets. It is apparent that as higher-speed services, such as IPTV, become available there will be even greater demand for capacity in the distribution and core transport networks. Hence, it is no wonder that underlying optical transport infrastructures need to be scalable and robust to reliably and economically support these services. Service providers have long recognized the importance of transmission capacity in the design of their networks. However, technological limitations often obscure the role of transparency in meeting their requirements. We review and clarify the critical role that optical transparency will have in facilitating the types of optical infrastructures required to support future services and highlight the technologies that enable it. In particular, we summarize recent advances in broadband Raman amplification, transmitter and receiver technologies with advanced modulation formats, dispersion management, signal processing, reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexing, and dense wavelength-division-multiplexed transmission with mixed 10, 40, and potential 100Gbits/s channels. Network planning tools that facilitate fast and optimal deployment of optical transport systems are also discussed.

© 2008 Optical Society of America

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