In this issue of the Journal of Optical Communications and Networking (JOCN), we introduce a new type of paper—new at least for our journal: a letter. This is intended to be a much shorter paper, but which we expect to have a very high impact and broad industry interest. Our vision for these papers is that they provide significant industry steer, or provide important data, to inspire other research. They might also introduce a novel but compelling concept that we believe the optical networking community should take seriously. Papers could be as brief as a single page, plus references, but might extend to 3 or 4 pages if needed. Our preference is for brevity. Although we expect to commission many of these new letters directly from key authors in the field, the category is open for all. Papers submitted in the category will go through the same peer review process, with a higher bar for acceptance than is usually applied.

The first JOCN letter is published in this edition [1]. In this letter, a strong case is made for parallelism or spatial division multiplexing for all future optical networks, ranging from chip-to-chip interconnects to subsea systems. Significant data has been compiled to reinforce the argument and we believe this will form the basis of many discussions and research in the area of future optical networks.

Looking forward, more letters are already under review, and I hope that this format will prove a popular method of disseminating new ideas, information, or data that is of interest to the wider optical networks community. Please reach out to the journal if you would like to discuss an idea that you feel might be appropriate.