In this work we detail the strategies adopted in the European research project IDEALIST to overcome the predicted data plane capacity crunch in optical networks. In order for core and metropolitan telecommunication systems to be able to catch up with Internet traffic, which keeps growing exponentially, we exploit the elastic optical networks paradigm for its astounding characteristics: flexible bandwidth allocation and reach tailoring through adaptive line rate, modulation formats, and spectral efficiency. We emphasize the novelties stemming from the flex-grid concept and report on the corresponding proposed target network scenarios. Fundamental building blocks, like the bandwidth-variable transponder and complementary node architectures ushering those systems, are detailed focusing on physical layer, monitoring aspects, and node architecture design

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Abstract:We demonstrate a 32-core dense space division multiplexed (DSDM) transmission of PDM-16QAM 20-WDM signals over 1644.8km with a record aggregate SE distance product of 331,300b/s/Hz·km employing a low-crosstalk 32-core fiber in a partial recirculating-loop system.

We demonstrate the first 1-Pb/s unidirectional inline-amplified transmission over 205.6-km of single-mode 32-core fiber within C-band only. 96-Gbaud LDPC-coded PDM-16QAM channels with FEC redundancy of 12.75% realize high-aggregate spectral efficiency of 217.6 b/s/Hz.

107-Gb/s full-ETDM transmission is shown over a 160-km field installed fiber link. A high tolerance towards narrowband optical filtering is demonstrated using vestigial sideband modulation to minimize the spectral width.

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