100 Gigabit-per-second: Ultra-high transmission bitrate for next generation optical transport networks

Modern telecommunication networks have to provide enormous data transport capacity in order to enable the dramatic annual internet traffic growth rates. As an illustration, today some internet exchange nodes partly exhibit annual peak traffic growth rates of more than 200% due to strongly emerging data and broadband video services. This explosion of internet data and video traffic can only be assured by the implementation of the most advanced optical metro and core transport network technologies. It is likely that next generation telecommunication transport networks will be based on 100 Gigabit/s Ethernet (100 GbE) interconnections. Here we will report on the technical challenges and achievements associated with the development of ultra-high speed components and systems for serial 100 Gbit/s optical transmission. To cite this article: G. Veith et al., C. R. Physique 9 (2008).