OFCNFOEC-2007 Workshop

40Gb/s Networks and the PMD Challenge
How much of the world installed fiber plant can support 40Gb/s DWDM upgrades?
What is the market impact of PMD?

Chairman  & Organizer: Sergio Barcelos, PhD
FiberWork Optical Communications

Monday, March 26th 2007, 8.00am – 11.00am
Ballroom B
Anaheim Convention Center

Download pdf version of the Workshop Summary

Presentation Abstract:
What levels of PMD should we expect?
Fibre specifications
ITU-T G.652 evolution of the recommendation and its PMD specifications. no spec. to note saying 0.5 to grades A (no spec), B & C (0.5) to A & C (0.5), B&D (0.2)… Market forces – the effect of the boom.In Europe, deregulation of cross border telecoms traffic on 1st Jan 1999 led to intense activity – 60 companies frantically building pan-European networks. Fibre shortages – 18 months waiting list from reputable suppliers – hence fibre came from elsewhere.Some manufacturers made bad fibre that would normally have been scrapped – but due to demand it could still be sold as G.652.A (2000) for example. At least one manufacturer thought they were making good fibre, but due to an inappropriate measurement technique that could not measure the high levels of PMD actually in the fibre, they didn’t know they were shipping very bad fibre – nearly a year’s production found its way onto the market. So not just a problem with ‘old’ fibre – one of the biggest myths in our industry. Of course no fibre manufacturer owns up to having ever made any ‘bad PMD’ fibre – all their production is perfect.If fibre is measured on a shipping spool then it will always appear to be good – due to the mode coupling induced by the windings on the spool. Good modern fibre from reputable manufacturers can now achieve PMD coefficients below 0.05ps/vkm So
Test methods
How do we test PMD?
The IEC SC86C WG1 has published 61280-1-4 and 62182-9 a technical report giving guidance on PMD testing of installed fibre links.Importance of using competent test engineers (Certified Fibre Characterisation Engineers (CFCEs)).

Biography:
Richard has more than 20 years of experience in fibre optics. He set up Optical Technology Training Ltd. in 1989 to provide quality training in fibre optics. He is a member of IEC SC86C WG1 – Fibre optic systems, the group responsible for measurement standards of installed cabling. He is also the liaison officer between IEC SC86C and ISO/IEC JTC1 SC25 WG3 – the international premises cabling standards group. Richard is the originator of the Certified Fibre Characterisation Engineer (CFCE) certification scheme for assuring the competence of those carrying out fibre characterisation work.

Presentation Abstract:
The presentation is bringing forward network planning results of cost impact of PMD on 40G deployment. This modeling is performed on a real network model whose scale (physical distances) is adjusted to examine metro, regional and core network impact. An attempt to portray realistic network condition has been made. The PMD modeling assumes that PMD is impacting only a finite amount of fibre segments in the network. These segments are determined randomly. On these PMD prone segments, the PMD value is determine on a per-span (80Km) basis from values that obey a typical PMD distribution. Few different 40G solutions with different PMD characteristics are compared.

Biography:
Michel P. Belanger obtained his PhD in Electrical Engineering (guided wave optics) from McGill University in Montreal in 1987. He has held R&D positions at Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal and at Canadian Marconi. With the National Optics Institute of Canada, he conducted research into the fabrication and application of guided wave optical components for sensors and communication. After a stint with Teleglobe, in 1995 he joined Nortel Networks as product manager for DWDM systems. Later, he moved to the optical development group as a member of scientific staff. His current activity is the development of electro-optic engines for optical transmission systems.

Kim Roberts has been doing research to develop radical solutions, in the areas of optical transmission and high capacity packet connections, since 1984. Products that Kim initiated have generated billions of dollars in revenue. He has been granted 66 US patents while at the Nortel labs in Edmonton, Ottawa, and Harlow UK.

Presentation Abstract:
As 40G enters Phase 2 (early commercial) deployment, the clock is ticking for the industry to have solutions ready for Phase 3 (mass market commercial) deployment by 2012. Ovum presents two different market forecasts reflecting scenarios that depend on whether these solutions exist. PMD has been identified by both carriers and vendors as an open issue in current solutions, but there is disagreement between them on how much effort to expend on solving it. However, Ovum believes how large the PMD is and how it is addressed could impact not only 40G but the path chosen between opaque and transparent networks.

Biography:
Ian Redpath, Senior Analyst, Ovum RHK

Ian brings 14 years of telecoms vendor experience to his role as senior analyst. He is responsible for developing the forecasts for Ovum RHK's four optical networking advisory services and optical components advisory service. He also contributes to custom research and consulting for clients.
Prior to joining RHK in 2004, Ian was the account marketing manager at Corvis for major carrier accounts. He was responsible for developing optical network plans and commercial proposals that led to successful lab trials, field trials and commercial network deployments. At Nortel, Ian was project manager for business and network planning. Working with Nortel's customer base, Ian led business and network planning efforts that supported carrier equipment deployment and capital budget decision making. Additionally, he held systems engineering positions in the areas of access, switching, optical and enterprise networks. Ian received his MBA from Queen's University in Kingston and his BSc in Electrical Engineering from the University of Manitoba.

Karen Liu: Vice President, Components

Karen Liu has 20 years of experience in networking and 6 years of experience in industry analysis. Her industry experience encompassed both the technical and marketing aspects of the DWDM transition in optical networks. Having been on both the supplier and customer side of cutting edge optical components, she has hands-on appreciation for networks, systems architecture and the interaction with the component technology. At Ovum RHK, she has worked on a number of projects on disruptive technology introduction. She was also the author of the first detailed forecast for ATCA platforms. Prior to joining Ovum RHK, Karen worked for Tellabs as a senior product planner, with responsibility for optical architecture and product definition of a metropolitan DWDM product. Before Tellabs, Karen was a research staff member at the IBM Research Division, responsible for the optical design of one of the earliest commercial DWDM system products. Karen received a Ph.D. in applied physics from Stanford University and a B.S.E. in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Princeton University.

Presentation Abstract:
This presentation considers the technical challenges of mitigating PMD in installed fiber optics networks. The impact of 1st and 2nd order PMD, rate of change of PMD statistics are considered, as well as the options for post compensation and robustness of different modulation schemes to PMD. An economic analysis of the different options for PMD mitigation will also be presented for consideration.

Biography:
Ross Saunders has 15 years experience in development and product management of high speed optical transmission technology. Mr. Saunders joined StrataLight in August 2003. Prior to joining StrataLight, Mr. Saunders led Product Management at a ULH start-up company, Ceyba Inc. and Pirelli Optical Systems (purchased by Cisco Systems in 1999). From 1992 thru 1998 Mr. Saunders worked on OC-192 DWDM system development at Nortel Networks in the UK and Canada, from initial concept through to final product verification. He also worked on advanced research in 40Gb/s and 100Gb/s transmission, optical regeneration and nonlinear fiber optics. Mr. Saunders graduated from Napier University, Scotland with a B Eng (Hons, 1st class) in Communication and Electronic Engineering, has authored over 80 technical papers and has 14 US patents granted in the field of optical communications.

Presentation Abstract:
Results of over fifteen years of field measuring PMD will be presented. Evidence of early PMD issues will be presented and contrasted against more recent PMD measurement to examine if cable and fiber manufacturers have adequately addressed the PMD problem. Close to 10,000 PMD measurements form the basis of the data base of PMD results that will be summarized. Measurements include aerial, buried, and underground plant throughout North America including some data from Central America. Some of the more recent data comes from non-traditional fiber optic network operators.

Biography:
John Peters is a Senior Engineer and Analyst in Telcordia’s Network & Product Integrity Organization working in the Fiber Analysis Group at the Raritan Research Center in Piscataway, NJ. John began his career in the communications industry at Bell Laboratories, Whippany, NJ, in 1968 as a Member of Technical Staff. While at Bell Labs he worked on the design of outside plant products and the development of outside plant methods including fiber optic cable placing techniques and the AT&T installation of multi-mode cable in Chicago in the late winter of 1977. After divestiture, John joined Bellcore to work on fiber optic technology issues. Since then he has authored many generic requirements and product analysis documents on all types of optical test sets; closures; fiber distributing frames; optical devices; and fiber and cable. John has been awarded Distinguished Member of Technical Staff while at Telcordia for his work on fiber projects. His responsibilities also cover consulting on fiber outside plant issues and fiber plant assessment through Telcordia’s field fiber measurements program that included measuring fiber plant for New York City Transit Authority, for New Jersey Department of Transportation, and numerous communications service providers.

Presentation Abstract:
Many of the fibers of DT’s fiber network have been installed during the early 1990’s when PMD values of manufactured fibers were not designed for 40 Gbit/s long haul connections. Today 40 Gbit/s introduction is to be in the offing in Germany, nevertheless only a limited fraction of the backbone routes allow 40 Gbit/s transmission without special technical solutions that make systems robust against signal impairments due to PMD. For future 100Gbit Ethernet the situation will be even much more critical. Due to high investment costs a new installation of fiber cables shall be avoided. Solutions like active PMD compensation or DQPSK modulation formats shall offer an alternative solution but there are technical difficulties like, e.g., too low adaptation time constants. The talk will discuss the situation on PMD values, temporal behavior and statistical properties within Germany’s fiber network and options for technical solutions.

Presentation Abstract:
Background on UK fibre infrastructure: There are three main types of installed fibre optic cabling installations in the UK:- 1. Incumbent operator – BT – majority of core network cable installed in 1980’s. 2. Cable TV companies, originally many local and regional franchises built HFC networks for video distribution together with PDH/SDH systems for telephony. The last drop to the home from the street cabinet is with a “twin” cable – coax for video distribution and twisted pair for telephony. After multiple mergers all cable TV networks are now owned by Virgin Media (after merger of ntl: & Telewest and combination with Virgin mobile). The fibre in these cable TV networks was mainly put in place in the early 1990’s, before PMD issues were widely understood and PMD performance of cables was not often specified. 3. New telecoms operators – after deregulation of the telecoms industry many new operators built metro, regional and national networks. This was boom time in the industry at the end of the 1990s to early 2000. Many of these new operators struggled to secure sources of fibre from ‘reputable suppliers’ and much fibre and cable came from less well established suppliers – often with poor PMD. Our PMD testing has been carried out on these last two categories – BT has its own internal resource for PMD testing. Test equipment used: In the UK, we have been providing PMD measurement services since 2002. Originally we just used the interferometric method as implemented by Perkin Elmer (now PE fiberoptics) in their Nexus system. We now have field experience of measurements using a wide selection of platforms including (all of those I mentioned in my earlier talk):- Fixed analyser – broad band source and OSA – JDSU MTS-8000 Fixed analyser – tuneable laser based system – PE fiberoptics Chromos Jones Matrix Eigenanalysis – Agilent MNT Traditional Interferometric – PE Fiberoptics Nexus Generalised Interferometric – EXFO FTB 400 Often we have used two or more systems to test the same fibres during the same testing episode in order to see how results correlate between different test methods and systems.

Summary of results: The results that we are presenting here are based on more than 2200 individual fibre measurements. Often we are asked just to test a single pair of fibres on a dark fibre circuit. One of the key findings is that more than 25% of the fibres on installed cable routes that we have tested have PMD coefficients above 0.5ps/vkm. The most spectacular failure was one fibre with a coefficient greater than 27 ps/vkm – I believe that this is a world record for modern cabled fibre – unless anyone else today can beat that! The first histogram shows the values obtained that are 0.5ps/vkm or lower with a breakdown into bins of 0.05ps/vkm. The second histogram gives a breakdown of the values between 0.5ps/vkm and 5ps/vkm, with the table inserted showing the values above 5ps/vkm.

Presentation Abstract:
Background on Portuguese fibre optics infrastructure: There are three main types of installed fibre optic cabling in the Portugal:- 1. Incumbent operator – Portugal Telecom (PT) majority of core network cable installed in the middle 1980’s. 2. Cable TV companies - originally many local and regional and at list tow nationwide operators built their one HFC networks for video distribution together with PDH/SDH systems for telephony. The last drop to the home from the street cabinets is always with a coax for video, internet and telephony distribution. The fibre in these cable TV networks was mainly put in place in the middle of 1990’s, before PMD issues were widely understood and PMD performance of cables was not often specified. Even, at those days, some of the operators were thinking that line data rates bigger then 2,5Gbps wouldn’t a reality anymore because xWDM would be able to solve all bandwidth limitations in the future! So, PMD wouldn’t a relevant subject! 3. New telecom operators – after deregulation of the telecoms industry many new operators built metro, regional and nationwide networks. This was boom time in the industry at the end of the 1990s to early 2000. Many of these new operators secured sources of fibre from “reputable suppliers” like electricity, gas, railway, motorway, and much cable came from less well established suppliers like water distribution companies. Our PMD testing has been carried out on these tree categories of operator’s infrastructures. Test equipment used In the Portugal, we have been providing PMD measurement services since 1997. Originally we just used the (Jones Matrix Eigenanalysis) JME technique and fixed analyser (Poincaré sphere) with tuneable laser from HP. We now have large field experience of measurements using, essentially, the interferometric technique (WinPMD from Photonetics). Summary of results The results that we are presenting here are based on more than 4150 individual fibre measurements. Often we are asked just to test a single pair of fibres on a dark fibre circuit. Our sampling isn’t normal because most of the measurements (85%) were made on pretty new cables generation, fabricated between years 2000 and 2005. One of the key findings is that less than 4% of the fibres on installed cable routes that we have tested have PMD coefficients above 0.5ps/vkm. The most spectacular failure was one fibre with a coefficient greater than 27,08 ps/vkm (fibre G653 installed in 1996, tested during 2004) – Now I know, we aren’t alone in the world! OTT found some thing similar. There is a lot more fibre, most from incumbent operators like PT, EDP and REN we had access only to a very few fibres. All measurements we made between 1997 and 2005:

Full Paper Click Here

Biography:
Modesto de Morais was born in 1967, Portugal. He studied physics at Porto University, obtaining in 1991 a graduation in Physics. He starts his professional activity in Fibre Optics testing and optical instrumentation calibration at IEP, Porto. In 2001 he obtained a Msc. in Optoelectronics and Lasers, in the area of Optical Fiber PMD testing and Calibration. Currently he is Telecom and Datacom Consultant at IEP, in Matosinhos and his research interests are in the area of High Broadband Optical Communications, New Access Technologies, Networks Security and Telecommunications in general.
Joaquim Anacleto was born in 1960, Portugal. He studied physics at Porto University, obtaining in 1984 a graduation in Physics. He starts his professional activity in Optical Dimensional Metrology at CATIM, Porto. In 2000 he obtained a Ph.D. in Physics, in the area of Optical Fiber Amplifiers. Currently he is Assistant Professor at University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro in Vila Real, and his research interests are in the area of High Broadband Optical Communications, Non-linear Optics, Thermodynamics and Physics in general. He develop his research activity at CLOQ - Center for Lasers and Quantum Optics in the Faculty of Sciences of Porto University.

Presentation Abstract:
Before stating that an optical fiber cable plant or a fiber optic link has sufficiently low PMD for supporting an upgrade to 40G transmissions, it is crucial to understand the difference between the PMD specification standards of installed cable plants (cabled fibers) and system specifications. This paper will review these international specification standards. We will then share PMD test results of cabled fibers and links from various regions of the world and evaluate their upgradeability to 40G transmissions. With these results, the attendees will be in a better position to formulate a picture of the 40G PMD-related situation.

Biography:
Dr. Andre Girard is responsible for international standards at EXFO. He is Canada delegate at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU-T) Telecommunication Standardization Sector, with particular interest in Study Group 15, on Optical and Other Transport Network Infrastructures. He is also Chairman of Canada National Committee for the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) Technical Committee TC 86 on Fiber Optics and International Convenor of Working Group 7 on Passive Components. He is also the liaison officer between the ITU-T SG15 and the IEC SC86B, Sub-Committee on Passive Components and Interconnecting Devices. He has received the 2005 IEC 1906 Award for exceptional contributions in the field of international standards. Dr. Girard is also a member of the Engineering Committee FO-4 on Fiber Optics of the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) and liaison officer for Canada to the US American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Technical Advisory Group (TAG) for IEC TC 86. At EXFO, he is also responsible for worldwide customer training, seminar and conference presentations, and writing technical papers, recently publishing 3 reference books “Guide to WDM Technology and Testing” (1998, 2000), “FTTx PON Guide” (2004, 2005) and “FTTx PON Technology and Testing” (2006); he also wrote a chapter on Fiber Characteristics in Elsevier’s 2004 Encyclopedia of Modern Optics. He launched EXFO Scientific Division in 1994 together with the IQ-200 Optical Test System, one of the company’s most innovative and successful product lines. Before EXFO, Dr. Girard worked as one of the founding managers of the Canadian Energy Diversification Research Laboratory. Over the past thirty years, he held different management, teaching and specialist positions - all related to optics - in military, university and private sectors. During his career, he published numerous papers and holds a patent for an optical test system for military applications. He has a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in high-power lasers from Quebec National Scientific Research Institute and a B.Sc. in physics from Laval University. He also had a Post-Doctorate at Laval University Centre of Optics, Photonics and Lasers (COPL). In fall 2006, Dr. Girard hosted the Annual IEC TC 86 Plenary Meeting (with 150 world experts in Fiber Optics international standardization) in Quebec City, Canada.

Presentation Abstract:
An extensive database of fiber plant characterization is audited to provide a sample of the current PMD (Polarization Mode Dispersion) status of the world installed fiber plant.

Biography:
Elso Luiz Rigon, MSc. Graduated in applied physics and master in physics at UNICAMP. Is an expert in optical fibers, optical communications, photonic crystals fibers, holographic lithography of nano structures, characterization of optical devices, interferometry, difractive and discrete optics and optical metrology. Has extent knowledge in fiber optics measurements, laboratorial assembly and optical systems integration, 17 scientific papers and 1 registered patent. Member of the Brazilian Physics Society (SBF) and Optical Society of America (OSA), founder (vice-president) of the OSA UNICAMP Student Chapter.