Wireless data transmission of IEEE802.11a signals over fibre using low cost uncooled directly modulated lasers

In this paper, we report the first fully bidirectional wireless data transmission of IEEE802.11a Wireless Local Area (WLAN) signals over fibre using uncooled directly modulated lasers thus providing a low cost solution. A successful connection of IEEE802.11a was established between a mobile unit and the remote base station (BS) which in turn was connected via an optical fibre to the wireless access point. A maximum data throughput of 20 Mbps and 18 Mbps was achieved at a 10 m separation distance between the mobile unit and the BS antenna in the uplink and downlink directions respectively. Results are also presented for the data throughput performance of the system with varying free space distance and the measured average throughput in both transmission directions.