Comparison of 128-SP-QAM and PM-16QAM in long-haul WDM transmission.

We investigate 128-level set-partitioning quadrature amplitude modulation (128-SP-QAM) experimentally and compare the performance to polarization-multiplexed 16QAM both at the same bit rate and at the same symbol rate. Using a recirculating loop we study both single channel and wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) transmission and demonstrate a reach of up to 2680 km at a bit-error rate of 10(-3) for 128-SP-QAM. We confirm that 128-SP-QAM has an increased sensitivity compared to PM-16QAM and show that the maximum transmission distance can be increased by more than 50 % at the same bit rate for both single channel and WDM transmission. We also investigate the performance at the same symbol rate as a possible fall back solution in a degrading link.