A Proposal for a Broadband Wireless Access Technology based on Radio-on-FSO Links

Significant progress has been made in recent years in the research, development and deployment of affordable, ubiquitous and always-on broadband wireless access technologies that meet the demands and requirements of business, academic and residential end user markets. One of the emerging technologies for broadband wireless connectivity which has also been receiving growing attention is free-space optical (FSO) communication. FSO can provide high-speed, realiable and cost effective connectivity for heterogeneous wireless services provision in both urban and rural areas settings. In this paper we present the design concept and experimental evaluation of a proposed broadband wireless access system based on an advanced dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) radio-on-FSO (RoFSO) system capable of transmitting multiple RF signals. The RoFSO system combines the advantages of radio over fiber (RoF) technology and a next generation FSO system we developed earlier capable of providing stable and reliable data transmission at 10 Gbps. The initial results and analysis on the transmission performance of the system under actual operational conditions are presented. We show that RoFSO can be conveniently used a reliable alternative broadband wireless technology for complementing optical fiber networks in areas where the deployment of optical fiber is not feasible.