Compensation for nonlinear effects in an optical orthogonal frequency-division multiplexed signal using adaptive modulation

We study the influence of nonlinear effects on symbol error statistics when a 16-QAM orthogonal frequency-division multiplexed signal is transmitted in a 1000 km length of fibre. A technique of adaptive modulation is proposed for generating signals that are resistant to nonlinear distortions. A considerable improvement of the transmission quality is shown to take effect in using an adaptive modulation scheme.