Upcoming perspectives and future challenges for ROF

The potential use of radio over fiber techniques (RoF) is analyzed and discussed in the context of recent large scale optical fiber deployments in Europe for broadband access but as well in the context of home or in-building networks to provide very high data rates to the end-users in harmony with expected evolution of broadband connections. Main challenges for RoF include the current evolution toward an all IP network, the rapidity with which networks evolve and the lack of standardization work.