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Reliable and conservative computation of the quality of transmission (QoT) of transparent lightpaths (LPs) is a crucial need for software-defined control and management of the wavelength division multiplexing optical transport. The LP QoT is summarized by the generalized SNR (GSNR) that can be computed by a QoT estimator (QoT-E). Within the context of network automation, the QoT-E must rely only on data from the network controller or provided by network elements through common control protocols and data structures. Therefore, given the theoretical accuracy of the QoT-E, the in-field accuracy in the GSNR computation is also determined by the level of knowledge of input parameters. Among these, a fundamental value is the connector loss at the input of each fiber span, which defines the actual power levels triggering the nonlinear effects in the fiber, and so defining the amount of nonlinear interference and …