Abstract

Twenty years from now, lightwave systems will carry vastly increased amounts of internet traffic. However, today's knowledge (2006) points to ultimate technology limits in the transport layer, heralding the end of an "Optical Moore's Law". Therefore, it is worth to put future capacity demand estimates in perspective with the "finiteness" of fiber bandwidth and sketch long-term research avenues to meet the challenge.

© 2006 Optical Society of America