Performance and limitation of radio-over-fiber network using standard WiMAX signal

WiMAX is considered for the last mile wireless connectivity to provide flexible broadband services to end users. And Radio over Fiber (RoF) system has attracted industry and research interest to extend the wireless cell coverage and reduce the cost by using the distributed remote antenna units (RAUs). Here, the performance of WiMAX RoF system will be characterized. Results show that the effective RoF transmission fiber length can be limited due to the time division duplex (TDD) framing in the connection using standard WiMAX signal generated by a commercial WiMAX bias station. WiMAX RoF performances of throughput and packet-loss at different link lengths are investigated and analyzed. Besides, a robust TDD switch architecture used in each RAU will be proposed for the WiMAX RoF system.