7. Conclusion and outlook

The global Internet has become such an integral part of modern society that it's almost easy to forget that, in human history, it was born only yesterday. Although invisible to users, optical transmission systems form the backbone of the network, and have played a key role in its fantastic development. In this dossier, we review the technological building blocks that enable the construction of such systems, and describe the interactions between them. We recalled the recent but real decline in the rate of growth in the capacity of these systems. Technological revolutions are needed to take up the slack. Mode multiplexing and broadband amplification are among the most promising.

Readers may wish to extend this study with the article devoted more specifically to submarine cables