Transforming the Internet Infrastructure: The Photonic HyperHighway

我们的愿景是开发颠覆性的组件技术和网络概念，将我们的通信基础设施增强1000倍，以满足我们20年的需求，避免网络堵塞并降低能源消耗。随着所有媒体上传输的数据量持续急剧增长，有一个广泛的-在核心网络和接入网络中，人们认识到迫切需要更先进的光子技术，以防止中期出现“容量紧缩”。我们的计划涉及两个世界级的团体，非常适合满足这一需求，并加强英国在这一领域的传统领导地位。全光技术还可以大大节省通信系统快速增长的能源消耗（占全球能源消耗的几%，类似于航空运输！），以及替代旅行，（例如，思科的超宽带远程呈现系统已经将其庞大的全球旅行预算减半）。因此，该提案的重点是我们现代社会面临的最重要挑战之一--一个能够无缝连接各地人员和企业的高能效、超高容量的ICT基础设施。全球通信基础设施的流量继续同比增长80%，这是由快速扩展和要求越来越高的应用程序驱动的：YouTube，MMS，iPlayer，云计算，远程手术等新概念，仅iPhone的引入就证明了对主要运营商容量的严重消耗。接入网络的带宽增长开始超过核心的可用容量。在过去10年中，全球宽带用户数量增长了100倍。我们现在正在迅速接近当前光学技术的基本数据承载能力;此外，支持当今不断增长的、耗电的ICT基础设施所需的能源看起来令人担忧地不可持续。现在是时候对一些长期存在的假设提出尖锐的问题了。我们建议通过开发能够将性能提高1000倍的设备，对支撑当今网络的物理基础设施进行根本性的改造，首先对一些最基本的传输构建模块进行关键性的重新检查-光纤，放大和再生，以及非线性开关和分配。自40年前光通信开始以来，石英光纤一直是其主力。然而，当它接近其容量极限时，彻底的重新思考可以通过新材料和设计在非线性阈值，传输窗口宽度和损耗方面获得红利，从而带来1000倍的改进。此外，目前耗电的电子开关是光子学可以缓解的瓶颈。虽然极具挑战性，但我们提出的新技术有可能在许多其他重要领域带来重大进步和好处，包括安全、环境、制造和医疗保健。如果我们成功地实现了我们的目标，该计划必将使英国在未来几十年内成为光通信和网络技术的世界领导者。

Our vision is to develop the disruptive component technologies and network concepts that will enhance our communications infrastructure 1000-fold to meet our 20-year needs, avert network grid-lock and reduce energy consumption.With continued steep growth in transmitted data volumes on all media, there is a widely-recognized and urgent need for more sophisticated photonics technologies in both the core and access networks to forestall a 'capacity crunch' in the medium term. Our Programme involves two world-class groups ideally positioned to satisfy this need and reinforce the traditional leadership of the UK in this area. All-optical technologies can also save considerably on the rapidly-rising energy consumption of communications systems (several % of global energy consumption, similar to air transport!), as well as substituting for travel, (e.g. Cisco's ultrawideband telepresence system has halved their large worldwide travel budget). This proposal is therefore focused on one of the most important challenges facing our modern society - an energy-efficient, ultra-high capacity ICT infrastructure able to connect people and businesses seamlessly everywhere. Traffic on the global communications infrastructure continues to increase 80% year-on-year, driven by rapidly expanding and increasingly-demanding applications: YouTube, MMS, iPlayer, new concepts such as cloud computing, tele-surgery, the introduction of the iPhone alone proved a severe drain on the capacity of major carriers. Bandwidth growth in the access network is starting to overwhelm the available capacity in the core. In the last 10 years, the number of broadband subscribers worldwide has grown 100-fold. We are now rapidly approaching the fundamental data carrying capacity of current optical technology; moreover, the energy required to support today's growing, power-hungry, ICT infrastructure is looking worryingly unsustainable. It is time to ask hard questions about some long-held assumptions.We propose a radical transformation of the physical infrastructure underpinning today's networks by developing devices capable of 1000-fold improvements in performance, starting with a critical re-examination of some of the most basic transmission building blocks - the optical fibres, amplification and regeneration, and nonlinear switching and distribution. Since the inception of optical telecommunications 40 years ago, the silica fibre has been its work-horse. However, as it nears its capacity limits, a radical rethink can reap dividends in non-linear threshold, transmission window breadth and loss through new materials and designs, leading to 1000-fold improvements. In addition, current power-hungry electronic switches are bottlenecks that photonics can alleviate. Although immensely challenging, the new technologies that we propose have the potential to lead to major advances and benefits in many other important areas - including security, the environment, manufacturing and healthcare. If we are successful in achieving our objectives, the Programme will surely establish the UK firmly as the world leader in optical communications and networking technologies for decades to come.