Welsh Scientists Radically Increase Fiber Broadband Speeds With COTS Parts 72
Mark.JUK writes "Scientists working under an EU funded (3 Million Euros) project out of Bangor University in Wales (United Kingdom) have developed a commercially-exploitable way of boosting broadband speeds over end-user fibre optic lines by using Optical Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OOFDM) technology, which splits a laser down to multiple different optical frequencies (each of which can be used to carry data), and low-cost off-the-shelf components. The scientists claim that their solution has the ability to 'increase broadband transmission by up to two thousand times the current speed and capacity' (most UK Fibre-to-the-Home or similar services currently offer less than 100 Megabits per second) and it can do this alongside a 'significant reduction in electrical power consumption.'"
Not DWDM, this is something else. (Score:5, Interesting)
which splits a laser down to multiple different optical frequencies
No no no thats just WDM for DWDM. Imagine a piece of glass fiber with prisms on each end and separate red, green, blue, etc lasers and detectors. They (can) operate completely independently. You can do the same thing with RF and NTSC signals... its call old fashioned analog cable TV.
OOFDM is like hyper close packed DWDM and usually made out of different tech. Some games are played to eliminate ISI and crosstalk, assuming the gear is working properly, perfectly linear, etc. Maybe a cruddy analogy would be kinda like two voice signals in one DSB carrier, or another cruddy analogy is its plain ole DSL FDM except coordinated so the FDM slices don't/can't interfere with each other and the leading O means its optical.
For RF this is "old" stuff like from the 90s. For optical this is pretty impressive and new. Same concept just a couple orders of magnitude higher frequency.
The wikipedia article is not so bad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogonal_frequency-division_multiplexing [wikipedia.org]
low-cost off-the-shelf components
HA HA yeah maybe thats in the grant proposal as a goal, or its low cost compared to installing another length of fiber... Its not gonna be low cost as in I could do it in my basement using parts from an old laser printer, or you'll be buying a fiber "ethernet switch" using it for $9.95. It is probably going to be lower-cost compared to any previous design, which IS cool.