It wasn’t long ago that the word gigabyte seemed as foreign as, say, Google. So it’s hard to fathom that 100G is just around the corner.
Ten companies have joined forces with Georgia Institute of Technology to establish the Georgia Tech 100G Optical Networking Consortium. It’s believed to be the first academic-industrial consortium of its kind in the world. To date, more than $2.2 million in support has been designated for this facility by the consortium's founding research members. They include ADVA Optical Networking, Ciena, OFS, and Verizon. Supporting members are Avanex, IBM, Narda Microwave, Nistica Picometrix and RSoft Design Group.
The consortium and facility allow academic and industry personnel to perform multidisciplinary research in all aspects of 100-gigabit-per-second transmission, supported by the diverse and complementary strengths of the industrial partners and faculty members.
Research topics range from fundamental studies of 100G optical transmission to assessment of optical and electronic technologies that will be used in such high-speed optical networks.
A variety of network architectures will be studied, including realistic impairments found in regional and ultra long haul links. These efforts also actively support the upcoming IEEE 100G standard for short reach, client-side transport in the local area network and future IEEE standards for short reach transmission over laser-optimized multi-mode fiber in data centers.
