OCTOBER 2, 2008 -- Next month, the Optical Internetworking Forum will celebrate its tenth anniversary, but don't expect any slowdown in activity. The forum today announced a new 100G Forward Error Correction technical project. Following close on the heels of the OIF's 100G Long Distance DWDM Integrated Photonic Components project announced in August, the FEC project is the fifth in a series of proposed 100G implementation agreements. (See "OIF to work on 100G integrated photonic components.")
"The OIF's responsiveness to carrier, system, and component vendor needs is what continues to make this organization so relevant 10 years later," notes Lyndon Ong of Ciena and the OIF technical committee chair. "The industry has moved from 10G to 100G during the OIF's lifetime, and OIF implementation agreements have helped pave the way. This project to create an IA on FEC for 100G is typical of our focus to foster industry collaboration and accelerate the development of optical networking," he contends.
The FEC project addresses the propagation challenges facing the optical networking industry in the long-distance application for OTU4 transport. The OIF's goal for the project is to develop a common basis for forward error correction that can be implemented cost-effectively in the near term while helping to meet the demanding propagation targets for 100G long-haul transmission in an interoperable way.
The Forward Error Correction for 100G dual-polarization quadrature phase-shift keying (DP-QPSK) Long Distance Communication IA will study and seek to reach agreement on an FEC algorithm suitable for long-haul 100G applications.
Defining a common basis for an FEC encoder, interleaving, and overhead rate will add to the scope of the 100G Long Distance DWDM Transmission Framework IA, creating common building blocks for the long-haul communication space, says the OIF. The implementation agreement will complement and support the work already underway to define 100 Gigabit Ethernet in the IEEE and the OTU4 of the Optical Transport Hierarchy (OTH) in the ITU-T.
