4. Dispersion measurements

With ever-increasing data rates, the various causes of dispersion are becoming the main limit to the performance of fiber optic systems. This is not an easy task, since they are highly dependent on the conditions under which the fiber is used, which can change throughout its life. It should also be remembered that maximum throughput on a link depends not only on the characteristics of the fiber, but also on the components (laser diodes, modulators, photodetectors) and signal processing, since multi-level modulations (QPSK, QAM, PAM4, etc.) can achieve spectral efficiencies of several bit/s/Hz [E 7 081]...