Late to the thread, but I took part of this research (7th author in the list). I worked on the signal processing, information coding etc and is happy to answer any questions :-)
BTW, congrats on your success.
It is a while since I have been into optical signal processing, but I will ask my colleague who is much more well-versed.
Optical saves a heck of a lot of power, and is obviously much faster than copper, so that's the way it's all going.
The longer answer requires reliable and appropriately sized/cost transceivers to get the data back to electrical to match the speed of the optical, and those are going to be a while coming, and this tech is still in the lab.
At the top end subsea cables have very high cost and traditionally bulky transceivers, and it's all about data volume, not switching.
At the other end of the scale is inside the data centre, where most switching needs to occur, there is a move towards optical interconnections and co-packaged switches. (1 and 2)
1: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/intel-... 2: https://www.intel.in/content/www/in/en/architecture-and-tech...
what's the tx launch power?
what's the frequency bottom end and top end, in nanometers or THz? does this all run in the normal ITU DWDM range from approx. 1528nm up to 1568nm, or wider than that?
https://www.fiberoptics4sale.com/blogs/itu-standards/1004345...
what's the expected path loss? I assume this is some normal 9/125 singlemode fiber and two strands.
what's the usable RSL threshold on the far end?
I’d say that there is at least a 10 year delay between the lab and commercial deployment. Even then we are talking about deployment in large fiber systems and not to the home.
However, not all ideas in the lab ever make it into deployment.
What modulation, bitrate and spectral efficiency did you use per WDM channel?
Was that rate achieved in real-time or with massive post processing?
Post processing times were not too bad. It ran on a standard desktop computer and gave an estimate of the data rate in about a minute (can’t remember exactly). Of course, compared to actual transmission that is terrible slow, but that was only due to the implementation and need of this experiment.
I have thought a lot more about the environmental impact of transmission technology. It is a massively energy consuming industry and the expectation is to provide more capacity, while the expectations on efficiency do not add up to an actually reduced energy use.
For what it is worth, I work on Alzheimer’s research today: https://optoceutics.com
Alzheimer's seems a challenge! Here in China they apparently approximate it for research purposes by dosing primates with MDMA... should be easy to find volunteers!