What is the experience of using ultra-low loss fiber?
With the breakthrough in the development of information requirements such as triple play, IPTV new services, and big data processing, the bandwidth demand of communication networks has shown an explosive growth trend, and the average annual growth rate of backbone network transmission bandwidth has reached more than 50%. In order to adapt to the dramatic increase in network traffic, it is expected that the 400G era will usher in 2017. The optical fiber as an infrastructure for the construction of optical fiber networks has a service life of more than 20 years. It is difficult to change the optical fiber network after laying and installing the optical fiber. Therefore, the selection of the optical fiber needs to consider all network requirements during its life span. Therefore, ultra-low-loss optical fiber has been sought after by the market.
Corning is a leader in the field of ultra low loss fiber.
In 1970, Corning Corporation of the United States successfully developed a low-loss silica fiber with a loss of 17dB/km. In 1972, Corning reduced the loss of the optical fiber to 7dB/km. In 1973, the MCVD method invented by Bell Labs produced the optical fiber, and the loss of the optical fiber. It dropped to 2.5dB/km. In 2011, in the "Power Road" Qinghai-Tibet DC interconnection project, the State Grid applied Corning ultra-low loss optical fiber to the longest span, ultra-low loss optical fiber system because of its stable operation, drastically reduced construction costs, and received industry recognition in succession. .
China companies are not to be outdone in terms of ultra-low loss fiber.
In 2014, YOFC officially launched two large effective areas (effective areas of 110μm2 and 130μm2, respectively) and low-loss optical fibers with attenuation of less than 0.184dB/km. Hengtong introduced ultra-low loss large effective area G. 654 fiber, G. 657. B3 fiber; FiberHome introduced 400G ultra-low-loss optical fiber; fast-speed fiber also has corresponding products available.
According to the fiber loss, the industry divides optical fibers into three types: ordinary optical fibers, low-loss optical fibers, and ultra-low-loss optical fibers. Among them, ordinary optical fiber attenuation is about 0.20dB/km, and attenuation of low-loss optical fiber and ultra-low-loss optical fiber is less than 0.185dB/km and 0.170dB/km, respectively.
Compared with ordinary optical fiber, low-loss, ultra-low-loss optical fiber can reduce span loss by 2dB and 3dB, respectively. Even if the number of segments does not change, it can bring about a 17% increase in distance per segment, and the total transmission distance also increases by 17%.
For high-speed transmission networks, under the transmission rate of 100G, ordinary optical fiber, low-loss optical fiber, and ultra-low-loss optical fiber can all transmit over 1,000 kilometers. Except for a few long segments, the existing ordinary optical fiber can cope with it; for 400G, Transmission rate, low-loss fiber can reduce the number of regeneration stations by about 20%, ultra-low-loss fiber can reduce the number of regeneration stations by about 40%, and the benefits are obvious.
The superior characteristics of ultra-low loss optical fiber provide network margin compared to ordinary optical fiber to extend the network transition span, amplification sites, upgrade to faster bit rates, increase the flexibility of network components, or extend the regenerator The distance between them enables a longer and wider regional network to meet the growing demand for bandwidth capacity in the world.
