Optical architectures evaluation for triple-play distribution in FIVER project

This paper proposes two fiber-to-the-home bi-directional architectures for triple-play distribution services as being investigated in FIVER project. First, a coarse wavelength division multiplexing (CWDM) architecture is proposed using two wavelengths per user one at 1550 nm and the other at 1300 nm for uplink and downlink information. The second architecture comprises a reflective component at customer premises what avoids the necessity of an expensive and hazardous laser at the user's home. In the proposed architecture a reflective electro absorption transceiver (R-EAT) absorbs the 1300 nm wavelength (downstream information) and reflects and modulated the 1550 nm wavelength coming from the central office (upstream data). Both architectures are proposed and simulated with VPI photonics software. Experimental modelling showing the transmission of three wireless services (LTE, WiMAX and UWB) using radio-over-fiber techniques has been included in the simulations for comparison. Maximum architecture reach using standard single mode fiber (SSMF) was assessed. From these results it can be observed that the CWDM architecture with Mach-Zehnder achieves up to 83.3 km SSMF for the 1550 nm path and 54.6 km SSMF for the 1300 nm path. Analyzing the reflective architecture the SSMF maximum reach is 29.2 km for the absorbed 1300 nm path and 18.1 km for the reflected 1550 nm path. In this case, the reflective path performance is affected by the distortion effects of single-wavelength bidirectional transmission in the same optical fiber. However, all the ranges are in the line of conventional passive optical networks which reach is usually less than 20 km without using intermediate optical amplification levels or chromatic dispersion compensation.