Multi-band Optical Network Assisted by GNPy: an Experimental Demonstration

Multi-band transmission is attracting the interest of research community because of its prospects to increase network infrastructures life. Indeed, current deployed systems mainly exploit the C band, thus deployed fibers can still offer a wide range of available spectrum. In this paper, quality of transmission (QoT) estimation is considered as fundamental control step for light path setup in order to check the proper feasibility of transmission along a computed light path. We demonstrate multi-band networking with channels on C and S bands in a testbed including a re-circulating loop. As a QoT estimator, the open-source GNPY module is extended in order to consider the typical impairments of a long-haul multi-band transmission and validated in this multi-band scenario for assisting connection setup with quality of transmission estimation. The measurements on the testbed demonstrated the correct operations of the multiband data plane testbed, particularly with reference to the GNPy estimations and thus validate the QoT estimator for C+S band transmission.