Time-resolved measurements of bit-error-rate and optical-signal-to-noise-ratio degradations caused by EDFA gain dynamics in a WDM network

Summary from only given. We demonstrated the usefulness of a new technique for making time-resolved measurements of bit error rate (BER) and optical signal to noise ratio (OSNR). As an example, we measured the OSNR and the BER of a surviving channel as the channel loading was varied by 100%. A severe drop of 5 dB in OSNR was observed despite the fact that the channel power decreased by 3 dB only.