Optical fibre-fed radio system for broadband services

The use of fibre-fed millimetre-wave radio systems seems to attract attention for future broadband services, such as intelligent vehicle highway systems, high speed wireless local area networks, interactive multimedia services, and mobile broadband services. Optical fibre and millimetre-wave radio are capable of supporting the large bandwidth requirements of these systems, and on the other hand, the low attenuation of the optical fibre provides the best method for the distribution of millimetre-waves at present. This paper suggests new system configurations for the integration of millimetre-wave and optoelectronic devices, which satisfy various practical issues of the fibre-fed radio interface such as size, weight, power consumption, reliability, and cost.