Christian Weisgerber wrote:
>
> > The new fiber is passive: no repeaters on the sea floor, so the new
> > technology can be applied to existing fiber by upgrading the on-land
> > endpoints.
>
> Huh? Can you point me to some references on this? It appears wildly
> contradictory to what I heard in my fiber optics course last spring.
> There are now purely *optical* repeaters, which are pumped with light,
> so no electric power supply system needs to be embedded in the cable,
> but of course you still need repeaters and you can't upgrade old cable.
>
If you used optical repeaters, you would still need a power supply to
power the lamp or laser in the light pump. I don't have an immediate
reference for the non-existance of repeaters, since I was going from
memory. I'll try to find one and get back to you.