Having worked in that industry 8 years, I can say that's an excellent practical introduction of key topics of the physical layer in optical transport.<p>Most reading material on optical transport is either elementary on one extreme or jargon-y material aimed at pro insiders.<p>It is refreshing to see a survey that covers so much in a clear, concise way.
This is an excellent overview of optical networking - one that I wish I had found years ago. As transceivers are getting cheaper, more and more industries are finding use for optical systems. Having a basic understanding of how these systems work can open up a number of creative solutions to problems that were very difficult to solve before.<p>The amount of throughput that fiber achieves over huge distances is incredible. It's amazing how easy it is to move 100+ gbps between two cities over a single 2-core fiber run.
Only mentioned briefly in this document, but may be of interest to some: 10GBASE-LR optics work with old multimode fiber [1].<p>Replacing the 10GBASE-SR optics with 10GBASE-LR fixed a flapping OM2 link for me (using mode conditioning patch cables).<p>[1] <a href="https://www.flexoptix.net/en/blog/2011/09/getting-a-10g-stable-ethernet-link-even-when-using-old-multimode-fiber-om2-om1/" rel="nofollow">https://www.flexoptix.net/en/blog/2011/09/getting-a-10g-stab...</a>
It looks like there is an updated (2016) PDF and video presentation by the same author here:<p><a href="https://www.nanog.org/sites/default/files/Steenbergen.Everything_You_Need.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.nanog.org/sites/default/files/Steenbergen.Everyt...</a><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KFpXuHqHQg" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KFpXuHqHQg</a><p>Can someone update the main article link (which currently shows a 2010 version)?