| APC | angle-polished convex (connector) |
| ASE | amplified spontaneous emission |
| ASK | amplitude shift keying |
| cw | continuous wave |
| DSF | dispersion-shifted fibre |
| DWDM | dense wavelength division multiplexing |
| EDFA | erbium-doped fibre amplifier |
| FWM | four-wave mixing |
| IEC | International Electrotechnical Commission |
| IEE | Institution of Electrical Engineers (UK) |
| IEEE | Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (USA) |
| ISI | inter-symbol interference |
| ITU-T | International Telecommunication Union – Telecommunication Standardization Sector |
| LAN | local area network |
| LED | light-emitting diode |
| MEMS | micro-electro-mechanical system |
| NZ-DSF | non-zero dispersion-shifted fibre |
| OOK | on-off keying |
| PC | physical contact (connector) |
| PMD | polarization mode distortion |
| RIN | relative noise intensity |
| SBS | stimulated Brillouin scattering |
| SLA | semiconductor laser amplifier |
| SOA | semiconductor optical amplifier |
| SPM | self-phase modulation |
| SRS | stimulated Raman scattering |
| WDM | wavelength division multiplexing |
| XPM | cross-phase modulation |
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