The impact of receiver sensitivity in the convergence of diverse services over future integrated optical access networks

Future access networks will integrate diverse services and provide a versatile platform for broadband access to hundreds of fixed, mobile and nomadic users. Optical fiber is the transmission medium that can support such an integrated network due to its immense bandwidth and low loss. To realize such a network, many challenges should be met at the different layers of the network. This paper focuses on the physical layer showing how divergence in the sensitivity of the receivers of different signal types can affect the performance of an integrated transmission system and thus the network design. The example of a ring/bus network that integrates mm-wave and baseband services is provided showing that the selection of the multiplexing and demultiplexing techniques, as well as the power budget of the network depend on the value of the baseband and mm-wave receiver sensitivities. For such access applications, the selection of the system hardware and related technologies is strongly dependent on the trade-off between cost and complexity.