Future ultra-high capacity transoceanic submarine systems

After a short summary of the main physical phenomena involved in transoceanic amplified transmission, the main characteristics and basic limitations of the first generation of 5 Gbit/s amplified submarine systems (TAT 12/13) will be described. Before the next century, the optimization of this technology will allow cost savings through increased amplifier spacing and use of wavelength division multiplexing (WDM). A second generation of submarine amplified systems could be technically feasible around year 2000, with a capacity in the 40-100 Gbit/s range. The different proposed solutions will be presented with experimental and simulation results already published or recently obtained.