An OFDMA-PON architecture supporting flexible all-optical VPN with source-free ONUs

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a new orthogonal frequency division multiple access-based passive optical network (OFDMA-PON) architecture supporting flexible all-optical virtual private network (VPN) with source-free optical network units (ONUs). In our scheme, variable-bit-rate VPN communications are achieved. Moreover, based on optical sideband reuse at the ONU side and optical carrier suppression (OCS) at the optical line terminal (OLT), the ONUs are source-free and components for the operation of frequency shift are eliminated.