OFC (the Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exhibition) — to be held March 11-15 at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego — is touted the largest global conference and exhibition for optical communications. For more than 40 years, it has brought together students, educators and technicians, as well as service providers, engineers and executive management. They hail from device and network manufacturing companies, fiber and cable suppliers, academia, investment and venture capital firms, enterprise, and government agencies.
This event in 2017 featured 14,500 attendees representing more than 65 countries, 663 exhibiting companies, and more than 1100 presentations.
Throughout the week there will be numerous special events, including the STEM Outreach Lunch & Learn on March 11. Hosted by the IEEE Photonics Society and The Optical Society (OSA), this event will feature demonstrations on the practice of teaching K-12 optics and photonics curriculum. It is meant to arm volunteers with the tools to work with elementary teachers.
Talk and Tour: Case Installation of Fiber-based Distributed Antenna System, organized by the San Diego Convention Center (SDCC), will be held on March 13. It will feature a panel of those responsible for the recent fiber-based DAS (Distributed Antenna System) installation at the SDCC, who will speak to the drivers, challenges, strategy and technology considerations behind the project. Topics to be discussed include problems-solutions relating to the customer perspective, selection process for business and technology partners, technology and infrastructure rationale, fiber system deployment best practices and lessons learned, and results and impact on the SDCC and the City of San Diego.
John C. Doyle, the Jean-Lou Chameau professor of Control and Dynamical Systems, and electrical engineer and bioengineer at the California Institute of Technology, will cover Universal Laws and Architectures in Complex Networks. It will include live demos that will highlight universal laws and architectures and their relevance to future network technologies.
Marcus Weldon, president of Nokia Bell Labs, will focus on Dynamic Deterministic Networking for the 4th Industrial Revolution. And Chengliang Zhang, vice president of China Telecom Beijing Research Institute in China, will discuss Optical Networking in the Cloud and 5G Era. Zhang will present the optical network evolution of China Telecom and other major Chinese network operators.
A number of other speakers are on tap for OFC 2018. Among them: Monia Ghobadi of Microsoft (Traffic Engineering and Topology Programming); Francisco Soares of the Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute in Germany (High Performance InP PIC Technology Development Based on a Generic Photonic Integration Foundry); Eric Bernier of Huawei Technologies R&D in Canada (Large-scale Silicon Photonic Switches); Siddharth Ramachandran of Boston University (Exploiting Angular Momentum of Light for Optical Communication); and Demetri Psaltis of the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland (Image Transmission Through Multi-mode Fibers).
Tutorial speakers will focus on technologies and applications including active optical devices and PICs, and fiber optic and waveguide devices and sensors. Hot Topics will offer panel discussions, demonstrations and other talks. They fall into several categories — Network Automation, Short Reach LAN/WAN/Metro/PON, 5G, Data Center, and Open Platform/Disaggregation SDN/NFV. Sessions will be presented/led by experts including Mattia Cantono of Politecnico di Torino, Shoichiro Oda of Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. in Japan, Hai-Han Lu of the National Taipei University of Technology in Taiwan, Valeria Vercesi of University College London, and Kirsten Rundberget of Fujitsu Network Communications Inc.
Courses and workshops offer attendees the opportunity not only to learn from industry experts, but also discuss the latest technologies, potential applications, and challenges and solutions.
There are several new short courses in 2018: SDM Components and Devices, High-capacity Data Center Interconnects, and Transmission Fiber and Cables, among them. Workshops include Field Trials: Make or Break for Innovative Technologies; Ultimate Capacity Limits for TDM/TDMA PON; and Will Optical Switching Drive Data Center Design in 2028.
The OFC 2018 exhibition is set to host more than 700 companies showcasing new products and systems. Demonstrations during the expo will bring various topics, such as Enabling the Key Applications for Transport SDN and AIM Photonics: Meeting Challenges of the Marketplace and Providing Innovative Solutions, into the spotlight. Attendees will also have the chance to network with industry experts, and talk with prospective employers in The Career Zone.
For more information about OFC 2018, visit www.ofcconference.org.