Progressive and Cost-Effective Bidirectional CATV/Wireless-Over-Fiber Lightwave Transport System

A progressive bidirectional cable television (CATV)/wireless-over-fiber lightwave transmission system based on one broadband light source (BLS), one arrayed waveguide grating, two intensity modulators, and one phase modulator is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. A continuous amplified spontaneous emission BLS is split into eight channels in the C-band with 50-GHz spacing. The multiple equal-space optical spectra exhibit a high optical signal-to-noise ratio (≥ 55 dB) and good flatness (≤ 5 dB). A high-quality comb multicarrier provides a single wavelength and twin millimeter-wave bands for baseband CATV and wireless transport systems. Several measured values (carrier-to-noise ratio ≥ 64 dB, composite second order ≥ 62 dB, composite triple beat ≥ 63 dB, and bit error rate ) can be obtained from distortion-reduced and noise-free performance. Moreover, downstream and upstream high-bit-rate wireless transmissions exhibit an interference-eliminating property. Thus, the proposed system does not only offer a future for progressive fiber backbone and CATV/wireless hybrid networks, but also provides a full-duplex interference-free for high-data-rate mobile communication and in-home CATV access networks as well.