Analysis of a WDM network node with improved performance under intraband crosstalk due to FEC

Intraband crosstalk (IXT) is one of the major factors limiting the performance of all-optical wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) networks. In this paper, the technology of forward error correction (FEC) is employed to improve the performance of a WDM network node impaired by IXT. Based on the moment generation function, a theoretical framework for the FEC coded optical receiver is presented, and the performance of the receiver in terms of IXT induced power penalty is evaluated by using saddle point approximation. The results show that due to FEC the power penalties can be significantly reduced by at least 3dB at the bit error rate of 10−10, so FEC technology can be used to increase scalabilities of wide area networks or decrease costs of local area networks.