ITU Approves Fiber Standard for CWDM

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has approved a global standard for a new optical fiber optimized for Coarse Wave Division Multiplexing (CWDM) in metro networks.



ITU-T Recommendation G.656 (Characteristics of a fiber and cable with Non-Zero Dispersion for Wideband Optical Transport) allows operators using CWDM to deploy systems without the need to compensate for chromatic dispersion, a phenomenon that at low levels counteracts distortion but at high-levels can make a signal unusable. G.656 also means that at least 40 more channels can be added to DWDM systems. The most important new feature in the specification is that it sets a low chromatic dispersion coefficient. http://www.itu.int