Wavelength Division Multiplexing - an overview.

By Ronny Sletteng, Network Electronics ASA

Throughout the last decades optical fiber has gained more and more popularity as a transmission
medium. The unprecedented capacity of the fiber makes it an ideal medium for transport of digital
video or other high bandwidth signals. An increasing number of TV stations use fiber instead of
coaxial cable even for in-house applications. A fiber cable typically consists of a number of individual
fibers, where 4,12, 24 and 48 or more fibers in a cable are common. Today the majority of installed
fiber is so-called single mode fiber, even for in-house distances. Multi mode fibers are mostly used for
very short haul data applications.

If you have reached a stage where you have used all your installed fibers, the time has come to
consider putting more signals on the same fiber instead of deploying a new fiber cable. There are
different ways to transport more data on a single fiber. One can use time division multiplexing (TDM)
where many signals of the same type are multiplexed together electrically before they are put on a
single wavelength. The other alternative is to transmit each optical signal on a different wavelength,
so-called Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM), which is analogous to transmitting different
radio-channels on different frequencies through air. Recalling the school experiments with white light
and prisms is also useful in order to understand WDM. The visible white light can be split (de-
multiplexed) into its components by a prism in the same way as the invisible WDM wavelengths on
the fiber can be de-multiplexed at the receiving end by an optical filter.

It is quite common to talk about different colours of light instead of wavelengths when describing
WDM systems. A number of different wavelengths will in this case be denoted as a set of colours. A
WDM-channel is a signal running on a unique wavelength. Each WDM-channel is completely
independent of the other channels, both with regards to bit rates as well as protocols, so running a
mixture of SDI, HD-SDI, SDH/SONET, Gigabit Ethernet and Fast Ethernet on the same fiber is easy
to do with WDM.

Multichannel WDM exists in two flavours, one is called Dense WDM (DWDM) and the other is
called Coarse WDM (CWDM). When it comes to transporting lots of digital video over a single fiber,
DWDM as a technology is unrivalled. If you on the other hand have a short fiber span and need a few
channels more, CWDM with its lower cost per channel can be a good alternative to laying new fiber
cable.

Let us take a closer look at the two implementations of the WDM technology.
DWDM uses temperature-stabilised lasers in order to fix the centre wavelength and narrow band
filters, giving many densely spaced channels. Typical channel spacing is 100GHz, corresponding to a
channel spacing of approximately 0.8nm. The wavelengths used are specified by ITU and the
technology is well proven.

CWDM on the other hand uses non-stabilised lasers in combination with broadband filters, which then
gives a coarse channel spacing of 20nm between channels. CWDM transmitter cards have lower
power consumption than DWDM transmitter cards, since there is no need for temperature control of
the laser diodes. The CWDM wavelengths will be standardised by ITU in 2002. The difference in
bandwidth usage between CWDM and DWDM is shown in figure 1.
Figure 1: Comparison of bandwidth needed for Coarse WDM and Dense WDM. The CWDM channels are
spaced 20nm apart due to the drift of the laser wavelengths (max 13nm peak to peak) and will fit a maximum of
8 channels in the range from 1470nm up to 1610nm. The DWDM channels are spaced about 0.8nm apart, and
due to temperature stabilisation can be put close together. Only 1/3 of the DWDM channels are shown in the
figure.

As one of the few suppliers, Network Electronics can offer solutions for both CWDM and DWDM in
their flashlink system in order to solve the different applications of WDM technology in the most
efficient way.
The flashlink CWDM architecture in is based on the well-established 4+1-architecture known from the
flashlink DWDM system, with 4 channels per frame and 1 upgrade port. Thereby allowing a 4-channel
system to be upgraded to more channels in the future as shown in the 8-channel bi-directional system
in fig. 2.

Figure 2: Architecture of the flashlink CWDM system. Example of an 8-channel bi-directional system.

The new ITU specification opens for 18 CWDM channels on a special type of fiber, using
wavelengths spanning from 1270-1610nm, see figure 3. The difference in fiber attenuation over the
wavelength range including the water peak at 1383nm of the standard single mode fiber limits the
practical distance for CWDM systems with more than 8 channels. Most current systems use the
wavelengths from 1470nm up to 1610nm. Fiber reducing the water peak attenuation is available for
new installations, but most of the already installed fiber is standard single mode fiber. CWDM is
therefore currently best suited for in-house applications and shorter distances with a low channel
count. If the future bandwidth need may exceed 8 channels per fiber, DWDM will be a better solution
with several tens of available channels in the range from 1530-1610nm, see figure 1. The uniformity
of the fiber attenuation over the DWDM wavelengths is better than the CWDM range as seen in figure
3, so for medium and long haul applications DWDM will be the best solution even for low channel
counts.
Figure 3: Example of single mode fiber attenuation for the wavelength-range 1280-1620nm. The
CWDM channels proposed by the ITU are indicated at the bottom of the figure. As indicated 4
channels around the water peak of standard single mode fiber cannot be used due to the high
attenuation of the fiber. Use of all channels needs a special low-water-peak fiber.

Table 1: Comparison of WDM technologies

The flashlink system has solutions for both CWDM and DWDM giving the flexibility to upgrade a
CWDM system with a number of DWDM channels, using the best of both worlds as in the example
shown in figure 4.

Figure 4: Example of a combined CWDM and DWDM system. A single CWDM channel is replaced
with a set of DWDM channels, thereby increasing the number of channels on the fiber in a cost
efficient way. This can be done with several CWDM channels in the 1530-1610nm range. Here as well
as for all optical system, the optical transmission budget must be calculated and verified before the
installation of equipment.