Experimental study of intra- vs. inter-superchannel spectral equalization in flexible grid systems

Benefits of intra-superchannel spectral-equalization are demonstrated in a production 8Tbps system. ~1.2dB OSNR improvement and ~4.5dB reduction in power-spread is measured relative to inter-superchannel equalization. Tradeoff between OSNR and nonlinearity dictates the net reach improvement.