Information Rates and post-FEC BER Prediction in Optical Fiber Communications

TL;DR

This paper reviews information-theoretic metrics for analyzing optical fiber communication systems with soft-decision FEC, including their numerical evaluation and closed-form approximations, aiding system performance prediction.

Contribution

It introduces practical closed-form approximations for information-theoretic metrics in optical fiber systems with soft-decision FEC, facilitating easier performance analysis.

Findings

Closed-form approximations for information metrics

Numerical evaluation methods discussed

Applicable to simulations and experiments

Abstract

Information-theoretic metrics to analyze optical fiber communications systems with binary and nonbinary soft-decision FEC are reviewed. The numerical evaluation of these metrics in both simulations and experiments is also discussed. Ready-to-use closed-form approximations are presented.