School of Electronic and Communications Engineering

01/10/02 1.1 Introduction to Optical Comms.
prz
Dublin Institute of Technology
School of Electronic and

Communications Engineering
Optical Communications Systems
Course Introduction
Dr. Gerald Farrell
Unauthorised usage or reproduction strictly prohibited

Copyright 2002, Dr. Gerald Farrell, Dublin Institute of Technology
01/10/02 1.1 Introduction to Optical Comms.prz
Overview
Course Introduction
Historical perspective
Wavelength and spectra
Advantages and disadvantages of fibre
Modulation
Fibre systems
Optical Communications Systems, Dr. Gerald Farrell, School of Electronic and Communications Engineering
Unauthorised usage or reproduction strictly prohibited, Copyright 2002, Dr. Gerald Farrell, Dublin Institute of Technology
Historical Perspective
Light has been used for line of sight communications

for thousands of years
Real advances began in the 19th century with several

improved line of sight communications schemes
Guided transmission of light over fibre became a

reality in the early 1970's
Other advances, such as the invention of the LASER

have been of vital importance
Unauthorised usage or reproduction strictly prohibited, Copyright 2002, Dr. Gerald Farrell, Dublin Institute of Technology Source: Master 1_1
Line of Sight Optical

Communication
1791: The Chappe optical telegraph

Claude Chappe demonstrated a signalling
system based on a pair of movable wooden
arms on a tower.
1855: The Leseurre mirror heliograph

Built by Jules Leseurre to communicate in
southern Algeria. The system involved a shutter
and two mirrors, one to collect the sun's rays
and the other to direct the beam.
1880: The Bell photophone

Voice modulated light beam used for
communication, to an "electrical" receiver
Bell Photophone
Moving and fixed

plates with slits
Batteries Mouthpiece
Beam
Light
Mirror with Earpiece Source
Selenium at focus
Receiver Transmitter
Journal Telegraphique, October 1880
Guided Transmission of Light
1854: The Tyndall experiment

John Tyndall, an Irishman, demonstrates that
sunlight can be guided by a curved flow of water
1880: Wheeler's lighting apparatus
Wheeler, a plumber, believed that he could light
an entire house using a centralised lighting
source, through mirrored pipes. The idea failed
1966: Proposal of low-loss glass waveguides
Charles Kao proposed fibre as an alternative
to existing methods using lenses at 10-100 m
1972: First sub-20 dB/Km glass fibre fabricated

Corning glass, USA. John Tyndall
1976: First commercial optical fibre system
Wavelength and Spectra
Wavelength:
Light can be characterised in terms of its wavelength
Analogous to the frequency of a radio signal
The wavelength of light is expressed in microns or nanometers

The visible light spectrum ranges from ultraviolet to infra-red
Optical fibre systems operate in three IR windows around 800 nm,
1310 nm and 1550 nm
200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800
Visible light
Fibre operating windows
Spectrum of light (wavelength in nanometers)
Advantages of Fibre
Low attenuation, large bandwidth allowing long distance (>100 km) at

high bit rates ( > 1Gb/s)
Small physical size
Low physical mass, low material cost
Cables can be made non-conducting, thus eliminating electromagnetic

interference, shock hazards and providing electrical isolation
Negligible crosstalk between fibre channels in the same cable
High security, since tapping is very difficult
Upgrade potential to higher bit rates is excellent
Disadvantages of Fibre
Jointing fibre can be more difficult and expensive
Fibre is not as mechanically robust as copper wire
Limited source power for systems, limiting operating distance
Not suited to ternary transmission, i.e. light cannot have negative values
so coding schemes using positive and negative levels cannot be used
Fibres are not directly suited to multi-access use, limiting their use in
local area networks for example
Susceptible to ionizing radiation
Receivers suffer from relatively high noise levels, limiting sensitivity
Typical Optical Comms Link
Transmitter Receiver
Terminal Terminal
Legend Optical Fibre Connector Optical Fibre Splice Optical Fibre
Transmitter contains an optical source to convert electrical signals to light
Fibre is installed in lengths, joined by connectors and splices
Splices are permanent while connectors are demountable, useful for testing
and rerouting
Receiver contains an optical detector to convert light back to electricity
Combination of a transmitter and receiver is called a transceiver

Optical Information Signals
How do we represent information using light?
Unlike an electrical transmission system light

cannot have a negative value
Traditional format involves light on / off to

represent 1 / 0, so called intensity modulation
Newer techniques use more sophisticated formats,

so called coherent modulation
Modulation
Most common form of modulation is intensity modulation
Can be carried out electrically or optically

Well developed LASER and LED integrated drivers
Analog or Digital modulation possible

Relatively simple receiver design (called direct detection)
Electrical
Data
Intensity
modulation Modulated
Optical
Signal
Coherent Modulation
Bandpass modulation systems, such as ASK, FSK, PSK

Electrical or Optical modulation, depending on type
More complex receivers
Better receiver sensitivity (less optical power needed)
Channel selection possible at receiver
Electrical
Data
FSK Optical
Signal
f1 f2 f1
Optical Fibre Networks
Types of Communications
Network
A variety of generic communications Networks have

evolved, some of which are:
Trunk Network
Metropolitan Network
Distribution and Access Networks
Local Area Networks
Trunk Network
Trunk network links major population centres together

Substantial distances involved (100's of km)
Transmission links (trunks) are almost exclusively fibre
Very high capacity, at least several Gbit/s
Resilient to damage
City D
City A City C
City B
Trunk link
Metropolitan Networks
Metro network is confined to a single major population/industry centres

City (10's km) distances involved
Transmission links are almost exclusively fibre
High capacity, up to several Gbit/s
Resilient to damage
Trunk link to
Nodes other Metro
networks
Distribution and Access

Networks
Local Node
Distribution and Access networks or Exchange
deliver services to the customer
Depending on the customer links

are fibre or copper (residential)
Relatively short distances

Communications
Cabinet
Medium capacity (up to 1 Gbit/s)
Resilience not present
Customers
Local Area Networks
Short range network

Horizontal Cabling
Normally privately
owned
Utilises a mix of fibre

copper and possibly
wireless technology
Bit rates are Mbits/s

to low Gbits/s
Campus Backbone
Building Backbone
Application Areas
The most common current applications are:
Public network trunk telecommunications links

Local area and Metropolitan area networks
Short range data transmission
Video transmission
The most promising emerging applications are:
Fibre to the home (FTTH)

Very high speed LANs (10 Gb/s +)
Unrepeatered ultra-long trunk undersea links
Optical interconnects
Public
(Telecommunications)
Networks
Optical Fibre Transmission in

the Public Network
Fibre is now very widely used in the trunk network
All systems use singlemode fibre
Operating wavelengths are circa 1550 nm
Bit rates per fibre are routinely 10 Gbits/sec or higher
Multiplexing at an optical level now common

So called Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing or DWDM
Can increase fibre capacity 100 fold or more
Trends in Public Network

Development
Rapid growth in network size:

The range of traffic types is expanding
Service bit rates are increasing
Other requirements have also emerged

Longer spans without regeneration
Improved survivability in the network
Expandability
Improved control and monitoring
The extension of broadband services to the home
Worldwide Growth in Telephone

and IP Traffic
Predicted World Telephone and IP Traffic Growth
(Source: Analysys)
Historically traffic 25
demand doubled about
every 30-40 months 20 IP Traffic
Millions of Terrabytes
Fuelled by the Internet 15
data and IP traffic is
growing at an 10
extraordinary rate Telephone Traffic
In the U.S. data traffic

0
has already overtaken 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006
voice on trunk links Year
Consequence: Lower Costs
Cost of Transferring 1 Terrabyte of data across the

network fell from 70,000 Euro in 1998 to a predicted
300 Euro by 2003
1 Terrabyte represents the content of about 1500

CD-ROMS
In 1998 it cost about 60 Euro to transfer one CD-ROMs

worth of information over the network
In 2003 it will cost about 18 Cent..........
Standard Public Network Bit

Rates
Bit rates have been standardised for:
Sonet: Synchronous optical network (US)
SDH: Synchronous Digital Hierarchy
OC-x bit rates are a US designation, STM-x bit rates are international
Designation Bit rate Voice Channels
OC-1 51.84 Mb/s 672

OC-3 or STM-1 155.52 Mb/s 2016
OC-9 466.56 Mb/s 6048
OC-12 or STM-4 622.28 Mb/s 8064
OC-18 933.12 Mb/s 12,096
OC-24 1.244 Gb/s 16,128
OC-36 1.866 Gb/s 24,192
OC-48 or STM-16 2.488 Gb/s 32,256
OC-96 4.976 Gb/s 64,512
OC-192 or STM-64 9.953 Gb/s 129,024
Local Area Networks
Fibre in Local Area Networks
Second only to public network use in popularity
Fibre is a broadband LAN medium, allowing longer distances and

higher bit rates
Fibre restricts the choice of LAN topology because equivalent

optical component loss is higher
One of the most successful fibre based LANs is the so called

Fibre Distributed Data Interface or FDDI.
Future fibre LANs will operate at 1 Gbit/s and higher
Applications for Fibre in

Buildings
Horizontal Cabling
Building Backbone
Most fibre is used in

campus and building
backbones
Horizontal cabling is
mainly copper at
present but may
become fibre
Campus Backbone
Network Topology Problems

In a copper based network such as a bus network simple BNC T pieces can be used
Allows for a relatively large number of nodes or computers
The closest equivalent for optical fibre is an "optical splitter"
But loss of optical power in the splitter can reduce the number of nodes to < 10
Networks based on optical fibre must use different topologies

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01/10/02 1.1 Introduction to Optical Comms.

Dublin Institute of Technology

School of Electronic and

Optical Communications Systems

Dr. Gerald Farrell

Unauthorised usage or reproduction strictly prohibited

Wavelength and spectra

Advantages and disadvantages of fibre

Light has been used for line of sight communications

Real advances began in the 19th century with several

Guided transmission of light over fibre became a

Other advances, such as the invention of the LASER

Line of Sight Optical

1791: The Chappe optical telegraph

1855: The Leseurre mirror heliograph

1880: The Bell photophone

Moving and fixed

Guided Transmission of Light

1854: The Tyndall experiment

1972: First sub-20 dB/Km glass fibre fabricated

Wavelength and Spectra

The wavelength of light is expressed in microns or nanometers

200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800

Spectrum of light (wavelength in nanometers)

Low attenuation, large bandwidth allowing long distance (>100 km) at

Small physical size

Low physical mass, low material cost

Cables can be made non-conducting, thus eliminating electromagnetic

Negligible crosstalk between fibre channels in the same cable

High security, since tapping is very difficult

Upgrade potential to higher bit rates is excellent

Jointing fibre can be more difficult and expensive

Fibre is not as mechanically robust as copper wire

Limited source power for systems, limiting operating distance

Susceptible to ionizing radiation

Receivers suffer from relatively high noise levels, limiting sensitivity

Typical Optical Comms Link

Legend Optical Fibre Connector Optical Fibre Splice Optical Fibre

Transmitter contains an optical source to convert electrical signals to light

Fibre is installed in lengths, joined by connectors and splices

Receiver contains an optical detector to convert light back to electricity

Combination of a transmitter and receiver is called a transceiver

Optical Information Signals

How do we represent information using light?

Unlike an electrical transmission system light

Traditional format involves light on / off to

Newer techniques use more sophisticated formats,

Most common form of modulation is intensity modulation

Can be carried out electrically or optically

Analog or Digital modulation possible

Bandpass modulation systems, such as ASK, FSK, PSK

Optical Fibre Networks

A variety of generic communications Networks have

Trunk network links major population centres together

Metro network is confined to a single major population/industry centres

Distribution and Access

Depending on the customer links

Relatively short distances

Resilience not present

Local Area Networks

Short range network

Utilises a mix of fibre

Bit rates are Mbits/s