Explosive Growth of Bandwidth

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The ability for carriers to smoothly grow data rates without pulling new fiber is the compelling value proposition of complex (amplitude and phase) optical modulation. Carriers such as Verizon and network equipment manufacturers such as Alcatel-Lucent have demonstrated 112 Gb/s transmission in an otherwise-10 Gb/s channel using complex modulation; conventional modulation leaves 90% of the fiber capacity unused!

Watch a video featuring Optametra founders at OFC/NFOEC 2010 in San Diego, demonstrating their coherent lightwave signal analyzers.

This architectural transformation of telecommunications is being driven by growing demand for bandwidth by products such as YouTube, data centers, and high-speed infrastructure build-out. Instead of pulling new fiber at over $50k/km, complex modulation techniques with greater spectral efficiency offer an easier, more flexible and lower-cost route to increasing network capacity.

While barriers to deployment of complex modulation in fiber include lack of a single modulation standard, the OIF is establishing dual-polarization quadrature phase shift keying (DP-QPSK) as a promising candidate. This is coherent QPSK (not differential), and it requires an independent phase reference, not one derived from the signal itself.

Although tools for visualizing differential optical modulation have been recently introduced, Optametra’s OM4106 Coherent Lightwave Signal Analyzers are the first to measure and display the full optical field of coherent signals. Using intradyne and proven phase-estimation techniques, Optametra’s instruments present in-phase and quadrature eye diagrams, constellations, data waveforms, and bit-error rates (BER) for both polarizations of light in fiber, using either the customer’s sources or available built-in telecom-grade tunable lasers.

Optametra’s mission is to enable customers to characterize, install and monitor complex modulation transceivers on the bench, on the floor, and in the field. Optametra: complex measurements made simple.