Abstract

We discuss the challenges in assessing the theoretical limits to the throughput of fiber-optic communications systems and argue that the uncertainty of available information capacity limits is within a range of 1.17 bit/s/Hz. We show that record experiments are within 20 to 30 percent from these limits in terrestrial single-mode fiber systems for metro to long-haul transmission. It appears that the continued scaling of optical communications will have to rely on parallelism and space-division multiplexed fiber transmission

© 2024 The Author(s)