Ultra-high capacity optical networks [Guest Editorial]

Increasing the capacity of optical networks has always been an important aim of academic and industrial optical communications research. Bandwidth-hungry applications are challenging the communications network capacity more than ever before, and therefore, research and development aimed at increasing network capacity has become much more urgent over the past few years. Research into ultra-high capacity networks addresses areas such as ultra-high speed transmission, network convergence, dynamic routing, and long-reach optical access networks.