It is estimated that approximately 22 million*, 10Gb/s Ethernet transceivers were shipped industry-wide in 2018. Transceivers have numerous applications from mobile backhaul to connecting switches and servers in data centers. With the multiple applications come varied requirements for reach on the transceivers. Some pass traffic for only a few meters but ultra-extended reach transceivers must transmit over 80km. At a distance of 80km the optical signal will accumulate a significant amount of distortion due to chromatic dispersion and will require electronic dispersion compensation (EDC) in order to create a usable electronic signal.
Not all Cisco platforms have ports that incorporate EDC. This means that ultra-extended reach linear transceivers such as Cisco