WARP-5 · Coherent Broadband Networks Embedding Smart Photonics for Cost-Effective Quintuple-Play

WARP-5 is driven by the internet explosion and the question for sustainable bandwidth delivery. It endeavours the advancement of optical metro-access networks through the new paradigm of coherent ultra-dense WDM systems. Under the umbrella of Fibre-to-the-Home as ICT field with high market potential, efforts towards capacity and reach extension pose severe system complexity and require a disruptive yet straightforward solution. WARP-5 aims to provide the required potential for a next-generation photonic Tb/s-capacity ICT infrastructure and the required credentials for low cost and power consumption. It does so by tackling two important pillars of ICT networks: their capacity and scalability.WARP-5 will unlock the potential of advanced modulation formats in cost-sensitive ICT segments such as optical access. A novel modulation scheme for off-the-shelf devices radically improves simple intensity modulation towards 16-level QAM. The applied technique lifts the guaranteed per-user data rate to 10 Gb/s, without raising cost and energy consumption. The 30-fold increase in the granted bandwidth with respect to the commercially available standards such as XG-PON comes with a high spectral occupancy and 5 GHz channel spacing.Scalability of common ICT infrastructure will be guaranteed not only by the envisaged transition from the electrical TDM domain to the pure optical and highly granular WDM domain