Passive 100 Gb/s Metro Migration

With data traffic volume increasing by around 40 % each year, the prevailing 10 Gb/s optical networks are quickly becoming saturated. As the long-haul technology research tries to avert the 'capacity crunch' with novel fibers, advanced optical components and sophisticated digital signal processing, the change in technology for metro networks, enterprise and datacenters has to be smooth yet swift. For the roadmap to 100 G metro networks, economic viability is of paramount importance together with greater space, power and bandwidth efficiency. Therefore, a passive 100 Gb/s approach without the use of transponders in between is an interesting resolution. This technique has already been well proven for 10 Gb/s transmission but needs to be studied for the newer 100 Gb/s transceivers with existing 100 G Ethernet switch or routers supporting LR4 optics. In this work, we present the various options for metro 100 Gb/s upgrade and demonstrate that the direct-detection DWDM passive 100 Gb/s has a chromatic dispersion tolerance of +-400 ps/nm.