| dc.description.abstract | Recent advances in communication technologies have led to an exponential increase in applications that require low latency, high capacity data. Optic fibre cables are a robust and reliable means to transmit low loss, high capacity and comparatively negligible delay data over very long distances.
Our research/industry-based project entails a detailed analysis of techniques to increase throughput on existing Ugandan networks, the current network topologies and data rates justifying proposed upgrade paths, a field test on our case study’s data stream rate on existing lines, as well as, simulations of Chromatic Dispersion effects versus Distance.
Synchronous Transport Module (STM) was for many years the appropriate fibre optic technology until functions requiring higher data rates than 10 Gbits/s became commonplace. Beyond STM-64, further improvements in throughput became untenable in terms of system complexity and cost. Advances in fibre sharing technologies since the ‘90s have led to superior modifications to Wavelength Division Multiplexing, that is to say, Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (ITU G.694) via Four-lane Grey Optics, to increase throughput by over 40 times from legacy SONET/SDH/STM technologies. While mitigating the effects of dispersion and other ‘high-power problems’ like non-linear impairments, compensation becomes imperative. The ITU-T G.655 and ITU-T G.652 with the Dispersion Compensating Module (DCM) surmount the attenuating effects of chromatic dispersion and polarization mode dispersion to deliver data at rates approximating 400 Gbits/s over hundreds of kilometres.
Within the region, electricity utility companies have increased Broadband access through lower cost overhead optic fibre installations via the multicore Optical Fibre Composite Overhead Ground Wire (OPGW) to provide nationwide fibre connectivity that augments the underground layovers of private industry players. These ultra-high baud rates are ideal for supporting emerging technologies like 4G/5G communications, Massive Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data Analytics, Blockchain, Regional Data Centres, Cloud-optimised connectivity among others. | en_US |
