100 Gb/s and Beyond for Submarine Systems

Starting from a recent experiment showing the transmission of 80 channels at 100 Gb/s over transoceanic distances, we propose an experimental comparison of solutions for reaching higher capacity. We present transmission experiments at various spectral efficiencies ranging from 2 to 5 b/s/Hz and we compare different error-correcting code schemes in order to clarify the impact of different solutions on the transmission reach. The results of all the proposed experiments lead to an analysis of the state of the art that highlights the difficulties and the challenges of going beyond 100 Gb/s in submarine systems.