Optical Connections Magazine Summer 2022

CONTENTS

A SENSE OF SUMMER Welcome to the summer edition of Optical Connections. In this issue, we go from the depths of the sea to the heights of senior management. We talk to senior experts from Nokia and Alcatel Submarine Networks about Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) which effectively turns a fibre into a microphone. When it’s lying exposed on the seabed, a cable is vulnerable to damage by everything from ships to earthquakes, but these threats can be mitigated and often predicted using DAS. Ahead of the FTTH Council Europe’s annual conference on 23rd – 25th May in Vienna, I talk with the Council’s Director General Vincent Garnier, about the state of FTTH in Europe, the Council’s latest initiatives and promoting a more sustainable and greener fibre industry. Still on the topic of Europe, we publish an exclusive interview by Carlos Lee, Director General of the European Photonics Industry Consortium (EPIC) with James Regan, CEO of EFFECT Photonics, a provider of highly integrated optical communications products based on its optical System-on-Chip (SoC) technology, about James’ career and the development of the company. Regular contributor John Williamson looks at how networks can be kept up and running, given that as ever more human activities are conducted online over optical networks, the detrimental consequences of service disruptions and outages loom much larger. He notes the upshot today is an intensifying industry focus on the development and deployment of tools and methodologies with the potential to minimise downtime and boost optical network resilience and up-time. This is taking place when any prospective threat to resilience, caused by additional complexity, is rising in some network applications. Also, the well-know telecoms writer Antony Savvas wisely writes that if you want to know what’s going to happen in the optical industry next, it’s often worth asking the test and measurement companies what they think they will need to develop next, and he does exactly that. He takes a look at software evaluation, compliance, chips and PICs to find out the latest developments.

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Industry News

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FTTH Council Europe Briefing Vincent Garnier

11 Keeping the Lights On John Williamson

14 EPIC CEO Briefing James Regan

16 Fibre Optic Sensing Peter Dykes

18 Network Testing Antony Savvas

20 Event Focus

All this plus a look back at OFC, our regular Event Focus feature, and some of the latest and most innovative fibre-related products.

24 Product News

Peter Dykes Contributing Editor

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ISSUE 29 | Q2 2022

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