  The performance of optical fiber systems based on nonlinear
frequency-division multiplexing (NFDM) or on more conventional transmission
techniques is compared through numerical simulations. Some critical issues
affecting NFDM systems-namely, the strict requirements needed to avoid burst
interaction due to signal dispersion and the unfavorable dependence of
performance on burst length-are investigated, highlighting their potentially
disruptive effect in terms of spectral efficiency. Two digital processing
techniques are finally proposed to halve the guard time between NFDM symbol
bursts and reduce the size of the processing window at the receiver, increasing
spectral efficiency and reducing computational complexity.
