Abstract
Optical amplifiers have played a leading
role in the evolution of telecommunications
over the course of the past
decade. What would the world of
telecommunications look like if optical
amplifier technology had not been developed?
For a start, wavelength-division
multiplexing (WDM) would be
impractical: At every repeating station
the signal would have to be demultiplexed,
electronically regenerated, and
retransmitted. In this scenario, multiple
fibers—rather than multiple wavelengths—
would probably be the most
economical way to increase transmission
system capacity.Cost per bit would
be much higher than is the case for
WDM systems. This added expense
would most certainly have limited the
growth of the Internet, since its market
penetration is primarily due to transmission
bandwidth availability and low
connection costs.
© 2001 Optical Society of America
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