Optical switching architecture to realize "moveable cells" in a radio-over-fiber network

When today's commuters in the train want to access the Internet, they see themselves restricted to simple Web surfing and e-mail. Interactive multimedia services, such as online gaming or video conferencing, are still unavailable to them, even with promising new technologies like UMTS or WLAN. Thanks to the use of a radio-over-fiber network in combination with "moveable cells", we want to offer a cost-efficient solution for providing broadband multimedia services to fast moving users. We present an all-optical switching architecture, integrated in the central control station of our radio-over-fiber network, to realize the moveable cell concept.