Performance evaluation of a multi-layer reconfigurable optical-wireless network architecture employing digitized RoF

Current access architectures do not support fixed/mobile networking in a converged way. We present a performance evaluation of a highly configurable optical-wireless network able to handle different wireless signals and traffic dynamics. In particular, an analog-to-digital converter processes the analogue radio frequency signals at a central node. Its digital output is transmitted over optical fiber and received by a radio access point where a digital-to-analog converter recovers the digitized radio signals. This means that no RF is present at the radio access point. The well-known bandwidth limitation of the digital signal processing is overcome by employing downconversion with, in this work, remotely generated local oscillators using photonic technologies. In this work, several broadband networking scenarios are evaluated via simulations and a proof-of-concept is shown for a full bidirectional transmission path. The high frequency radio signals carry 16-QAM data at 33 Mbps and 40 Mbps. Furthermore, colorless and remotely seeded optical sources have been considered based on cost-effective reflective semiconductor optical amplifiers. It is important to note that the before-mentioned photonic technologies introduce powerful cross-layer reconfigurability to the system. The simulation results confirm the proof-of-concept.