Balancing Bandwidth and Budget

Of course, the other variable that always needs to be considered is cost. More specifically, in

situations where the distances are the same, which approach will deliver the best balance of

bandwidth and cost? Well, that depends on the distance.

For longer distances, say 3000 kilometers, service providers often find that increasing baud rate

yields the best results. Transmitting at 1× the baud rate, using DP-QPSK modulation provides 96

100G (per wavelength) channels. 96 × 100 yields a total capacity of 9.6 terabits. Doubling the

baud rate, doubles the bit rate of the wavelength to 200G. The wider wavelength reduces the

number of channels to 64 for a total capacity of 12.8 terabits (64 × 200). The bottom line result

for this scenario? Doubling the baud rate increases capacity 33-percent, from 9.6 to 12.8 terabits,

while the number of transponders needed is reduced from 96 to 64.

Alternatively, for shorter distances, increasing the modulation density provides some advantages

versus increasing the baud rate. Transmitting over smaller distances creates less noise which

allows the carrier to use a denser modulation. As an example, let’s assume that a carrier needs to

transmit 2 × 100G circuits over a short distance. The carrier can choose to operate at QPSK with

two transponders and two 100G wavelengths. This approach uses 100Ghz of spectrum (two

wavelengths at 50Ghz) and requires two transponders. Or, the carrier can operate at 16QAM

with a single transponder and a single wavelength for both 100G circuits. This approach uses

50Ghz of spectrum (one wavelength at 50Ghz) and requires only a single transponder.
In general, if the distance is short, it is more cost effective to increase the modulation density and

reduce the number of required transponders. As the transmission distance increases, at some

point, it becomes more effective to increase the baud rate to reduce the equipment cost.