On the Benefits of Rate-Adaptive Transceivers: A Network Planning Study

Flexible-grid Elastic Optical Networks (EONs) have been widely deployed in recent years to support the growing demand for bandwidth-intensive applications. To address this cost-efficiently, optimized utilization of EONs is required. Next-generation bandwidth-variable transceivers (BVTs) will offer increased adaptivity in symbol rate as well as modulation through probabilistic constellation shaping. In this work, we therefore investigate the impact of increased configuration granularity on various aspects of optical networks. We account for practical implementation considerations of BVT configurations for the estimation of the required signal-to-noise ratio. Additionally, an optimization algorithm is presented that selects the most efficient configuration for each considered data rate and bandwidth combination. Based on the advanced transceiver configurations, we conduct a network planning study using a physical-layer-aware algorithm for flexible-grid EONs, and present results for a national and a continental optical backbone network topology. Our research demonstrates that a rise in modulation rate adaptivity results in substantial savings in resources, decreasing the number of necessary lightpaths by as much as 20% in EONs. In contrast, increased symbol rate granularity only results in minor savings.

Transmission-Aware Bandwidth Variable Transceiver Allocation in DWDM Optical Networks

This paper addresses the transmission-aware transceiver allocation problem of flexible optical networks for a multi-period planning. The proposed approach aims at assigning the best configuration of bandwidth variable transceivers (BVTRX) considering the amplifier noise and nonlinear channel interferences using the incoherent Extended Gaussian Noise (EGN) model. The proposed solution improves the network throughput and spectrum utilization in the early planning periods and allocates lower number of BV-TRXs in later periods in comparison to algorithms presented recently. A heuristic approach to regenerator placement has also been applied achieving up to 25% transceiver and 50% spectrum utilization savings in comparison to configurations without regenerators.