Advanced Digital Optical Communications, 2nd Edition

1

Introduction

This chapter outlines briefly the historical development, emergence, and merging of the fundamental digital communication and optical communication techniques to fully exploit and respond to the challenges of the availability of ultra-high frequency and ultra-wideband in the optical spectra of optical fiber communications technology. The organization of rest of the chapters of the book is outlined in this chapter.

1.1 Digital Optical Communications and Transmission Systems: Challenging Issues

Starting from the proposed dielectric waveguides by Kao and Hockham [1,2] in 1966, the first research phase attracted intensive interest around the early 1970s in the demonstration of fiber optics, and optical communications has greatly ...