Solitons in Optical Fibers and their Use in Ultra Long Distance, High Bit Rate Transmission

Long distance transmission using optical amplifiers can provide greater bandwidth at lower cost than that using conventional electronic regeneration. In the first place, the cost of regenerators tends to grow rapidly with increasing bit rate. More fundamentally, to take full advantage of the potential capacity of fibers, one would like to use wavelength division multiplexing (WDM). A separate set of regenerators is required for each channel, however, again multiplying the cost. Finally, electronic regenerators, in employing a great many active components that must work in perfect coordination, pose a serious potential for failure.