Guest Blog Archives

Technologies and Products

China Telecom collaborates with ZTE to complete world’s first C+L band integrated 80×800G WDM trial on live network

By Optical Connections News Team

The trial achieved flexible adjustment of wavelengths within a 12 THz ultra-wide spectrum, and demonstrated live network rerouting with wavelength switching in approximately 30 seconds China Telecom and ZTE will continue to collaborate to accelerate the application of extended C+L band WDM technology Barcelona, Spain, 5 March 2025 – ZTE Corporation (0763.HK / 000063.SZ), a global leading […]

Guest Blog

Yokogawa AQ6370E OSA’s new features meet key needs of research and production

By Optical Connections News Team

The latest addition to Yokogawa Test&Measurement’s range of optical spectrum analyzers (OSAs), on show on Stand E24 at ECOC 2024, provides sharper spectrum measurement with HCDR mode and much faster SMSR measurement. With a wavelength range of 600-1700 nm, the AQ6370E OSA can be used to characterize a wide range of components, including lasers for […]

Guest Blog

Q&A interview from ZTE

By wp-admin

ZTE has presented the all-optical city solution at MWC Shanghai 2024. What technological innovations and commercial values have it brought to us? PON technologies undergo generational upgrades every 10 years. At present, the 50G PON industry chain is gradually maturing. ZTE’s all-optical city solution promotes urban digitalization, and is applicable to campus, industry, and FTTM […]

Technologies and Products

FTTR-B Opens New Horizons for Micro and Small Enterprises

By Optical Connections News Team

Boosting Enterprise Connectivity and Revenue Fiber to the room (FTTR) technology is driving a new wave of fiber transformation, experiencing explosive growth in China. FTTR empowers operators with the ability to guarantee bandwidth, leverage their installation and maintenance expertise, and penetrate the MSEs (Micro and Small Enterprises) market. Traditionally, over 90% of MSEs build their […]

Guest Blog

Hamamatsu Photonics’ InGaAs Photodiodes: Illuminating the Future of Optical Communications

By Optical Connections News Team

In the dynamic landscape of optical communications, the evolution of data transmission technologies has reached new heights, propelled by innovations such as InGaAs photodiodes. Among the pioneers in this field, Hamamatsu has taken center stage, revolutionizing the industry with its cutting-edge photodiode technology. At the heart of optical communication lies the InGaAs photodiode, a crucial […]

Product Focus

MDB Series Is Coming

By Optical Connections News Team

Durable Solutions for Your Networks with IP65 & IK10 Deploying and maintaining your fiber infrastructure needs to be a routine not a challenge – Easier, Faster and Cost Effective. Therefore Micos Telcom – PLP have designed the brand-new Fiber Optic Boxes MDB to simplify deployment, maintenance and control your costs. The boxes can be configured […]

Guest Blog

The value of achieving optical networking certifications

By Darron Barr

There has been an ongoing debate about the value of professional certifications since they became popular in the 1990s. Unfortunately, many of these professional certifications received bad publicity for producing professionals with theoretical knowledge and little or no hands-on experience. Professional certifications have come a long way since then and have a place next to […]

Guest Blog

The Power of Silicon Photonics

By Optical Connections News Team

Silicon photonics has transformed coherent transmission by continually delivering significant reductions in the power, size, and cost of optical modules. An increasing number of optics vendors today are leveraging this technology for their pluggable coherent solutions. However, this was not always the case. Only nine years ago, many companies were challenging whether silicon photonics was […]

Guest Blog

Unleash the power of 400G everywhere

By Optical Connections News Team

Relentless demand for more capacity at lower costs is compelling network operators to continually upgrade their IP-optical networks. Fortunately, advances in digital signal processing and silicon photonics have spawned a new generation of router-pluggable digital coherent optics (DCOs) and performance-optimized transponders that can ease the transition to 400 Gigabit Ethernet (GE). Nokia 400G everywhere enables […]

Guest Blog

The Dawn of 400G

By Ray Hagen

The beginning of a new year may bring with it resolutions to live a healthier lifestyle, to spend more time with family or to take up a new hobby. For our industry, the resolution may be that 2020 is the year that 400G moves out of the lab and into mass production! ProLabs has been […]

Guest Blog

WDM – Getting More Out of Your Fibres, a Guide for Musicians

By Anthony Clarkson

Optical transmission is like light, as you may know it. Light rays from the sun travel massive distances to reach us, and light bulbs perform a similar function but over much shorter distances. To send data down fibre optic cable, we use lasers to make light. We use different wavelengths (or colours) to be able […]

Guest Blog

Build more lanes and expand capacity with CWDM

By Ray Hagen

Anyone who has been stuck in congested traffic has felt the pain of too many cars condensed into a finite number of lanes. Adding more lanes to highways can alleviate traffic congestion and ease bottlenecks, but it comes with a hefty price in terms of both dollars spent and commuter headaches. Luckily, solving your network […]

Guest Blog

Part 2 – Network Convergence – Distributed Access Architectures

By Ray Hagen

SCTE Cable-Tec EXPO 2019 is now behind us and ProLabs was busy with a number of new product announcements tailored to Multiple System Operator (MSO) and Cable TV operators’ distributed access architecture (DAA) networks. SCTE 2019 continued the industry’s focus on Remote PHY and other DAA and the consensus across the event is that after […]

Guest Blog

Empowering a wireless world with fiber optics

By Ray Hagen

If you have followed ProLabs social media feeds over the past year, you know that we’ve been present at many service providers conferences around the world. We’ve attended and contributed to SCTE Cable-Tec EXPO, NGON, Fiber Connect, and FTTH Europe to name a few. We’ve witnessed the fiber optic world first-hand and it is in […]

Guest Blog

Multimode and singlemode fibres: Comparing 400G access types

By Ambroise Thirion

400G is now under release over multiple form-factors: QSDFP-DD, OSFP and CFP8. While the short-term deployment is on the access side, and mainly for intra-DC application, other applications such as DCI and transmission are also going on the 400G direction. As we are now getting familiar with the form-factors and the PAM4 modulation, it is […]

Guest Blog

The QSFP28 100G FR single laser, a competitor to the CWDM4?

By Ambroise Thirion

Thanks to the 400G technology, a new QSFP28 100G module type is coming. The QSFP28 100GBASE-FR, also called QSFP28 100G single lambda, will be a single laser and a single receiver of 100Gbps instead of being 4x25Gbps (4x lasers and 4x receivers). Back to the regular QSFP28 4x25Gbps The QSFP28 100Gbps is a parallel optic, […]

Guest Blog

From 50Gbps PAM4 to 100Gbps PAM4

By Ambroise Thirion

What’s the difference between 400GBASE-LR8 and 400GBASE-LR4? Both QSFP-DD and OSFP transceivers can transmit at 400Gbps using 8 lanes of 50Gbps PAM4 or 4 lanes at 100Gbps PAM4. But what’s the real difference behind 50Gbps PAM4 and 100Gbps PAM4? How do we achieve this transition? Pre-requirements Modulation For all optical transceivers transmitting up […]

Guest Blog

Two form factors in competition

By Ambroise Thirion

With 400G switches just under release, the industry is already seeing two form factors in competition. What does this mean for the network operators? Why are these two form factors in competition? Are they really in competition? While there are multiple form-factors for 400G bitrates, the QSFP56-DD and OSFP are clearly in competition for all […]

Guest Blog

400G – Which form factor? (QSFP-DD, OSFP, CFP8)

By Ambroise Thirion

We are all aware about the SFP+ for 10G and QSFP28 for 100G transmission. A small form factor pluggable, a low-power consumption and an interoperability between all systems vendors; these are the 3 successful criteria for a complete form factor. However, we all remember the situation on 100G, characterised by 4 different form factors: 400G form […]