CONTENTS
While countries around the world adopt different approaches to mitigating the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic with widely varying degrees of success, the fibre optic communications industry continues to see growth and innovation. Indeed, to a considerable extent, progress in the industry is being driven by the global crisis as more people opt to work from home, communicate remotely and stream video and game content – all of which were existing trends which have been accelerated by the pandemic. In this issue, we look at some of the ways the industry is responding to the demand for delivering greater speed and bandwidth to homes and businesses. John Williamson looks at how XGS-PON is rapidly becoming the technology of choice for FTTH/FTTP, high-speed residential and business services, rural communications provision and more. In the photonics sector, Antony Savvas examines the evolving market for tuneable optics and lasers supporting data centre connectivity, metropolitan connections and links to the edge. Of course, 5G will be an important part of the communications technologies mix going forward and optical connector technology will provide the vital links from the RAN, all the way back to the core fibre network. Manufacturers are meeting the challenges from the densification resulting from the high antenna count necessary to provide adequate 5G coverage, so HUBER+SUHNER’s Fabian Huber , VP Market Management, Cell Sites, kindly took time out to mull over some of the issues with Optical Connections editor Peter Dykes . Although no-one was planning to hold virtual trade shows at the beginning of 2020, it soon became evident that it was an inevitable consequence of the pandemic and one which is going to impact on the industry for the time being at least. It hasn’t had a major effect on the industry’s ability to network and do business however, as proved by the success of Virtual ECOC 2020. In this issue, we take a look back at the ever-popular expo and conference, plus Market and Product Focus presentations and the winners of Optical Connections’ first ever ECOC Industry Awards. It is to be fervently hoped that the world will one day soon emerge from the current crisis and that life will return to some semblance of normality. In the meantime, telecommunication, and in particular the fibre optic industry, will continue to provide the vital links between people who must otherwise be apart. FIBRE OPTICS IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER
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Industry News
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Intel Integration at the wafer level
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John Williamson XGS-PON Surges
12 Peter Dykes
The View from HUBER+SUHNER
14 Antony Savvas Tuneable Optics
16 Event Focus
17 David Binder
The Evolution of pluggable transceivers
18 ECOC 2020 Wrap
20 ECOC 2020 Market Focus Presentations
21 ECOC 2020 Industry Awards The Winners
Peter Dykes Contributing Editor, Optical Connections
22 Product News
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Q1 2021
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