Marconi's new venture, Marconi SOLSTIS, based just outside Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, specializes in research and development to enhance optical communications transmission systems. This virtual start-up has the speed and flexibility of a traditional start-up, but with the resources of the Marconi global organization behind it.

SOLSTIS is developing solutions that will contribute to dramatic increases in the transmission speeds of optical networks — the long-distance fiber-optic networks that form the backbone infrastructure of today's telecommunications service providers. At the heart of its pioneering work are "dispersion managed solitons" — a concept that has already enabled world-record transmission distances — a standard fiber carrying 10 Gbit/s across 16,000 km, for example, and 40 Gbit/s carried over 1,000 km.

This document offers an introduction to SOLSTIS' work and its significance to the telecommunications networks of the future. It introduces solitons, outlines the three main adverse influences on optical fiber transmission and describes how solitons can alleviate their effects, dramatically improving optical transmission.