Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by RoderickBeck 596 days ago
Not really. I know of no cases where optical amplifiers posed a barrier to upgrading. Ciena and Infinera have been able to upgrade cable capacity by several X.

Optical amplifiers simply boost the signal. A photo is absorbed and then re-emitted with more power, but the same frequency and phase.

There is no optical/electrical/optical conversion.