[PL] Plenary Talks

[Plenary Talk 2] Submarine Communications-Connecting the World

〇Alexei Pilipetskii (SubCom, USA)

Undersea fiber optic cables are the integral part of worldwide communications infrastructure carrying more than 99% of international data traffic between continents. In a bit more than last 20 years transmission technology experienced explosive growth resulting in more than 105 orders of magnitude increase in cable capacity and similar reduction in cost per information bit. Despite this progress the demand for communication capacity is far from saturation with current annual growth rate of at least 30%. We are reaching an interesting point in history where transmission technology is becoming very mature and approaching fundamental limits. The talk will examine the evolution of transmission concepts that changed multiple times in the last 20 years, the next immediate steps in technology evolution, further challenges facing continuing capacity growth, and the need for the new disruptive technologies.

Bio:Alexei Pilipetskii received his Ph.D. in 1990 for the research in nonlinear fiber optics from Academy of Sciences Russia. From 1994 to 1997 he was with the University of Maryland Baltimore County, where his interests shifted to the fiber optic data transmission. In 1997 he joined Forward Looking team at AT&T Submarine Systems, currently SubCom where he was focused on the transmission research and introduction of the new technologies. He currently leads the transmission research department (Forward Looking Team) at SubCom. He is an author and co-author of more than 200 journal and conference publications, and more than 25 patent applications. He is IEEE Photonics Society Fellow from 2018.