Optical transmission evolution: From digital to analog to? Network tradeoffs between optical transparency and reduced regeneration cost

Recent technology developments have made high-capacity long-distance optical transmission routine out to several thousand kilometers, bringing the ideal of an optically transparent network closer than ever before. At the same time, advances in semiconductor processing and packaging have made it possible to achieve compact, very low cost optoelectronic building blocks. The objective of this workshop is to examine these technology trends to understand how they compete or cooperate to increase network performance while reducing cost.