Prospects of supporting distributed antenna systems over next-generation optical access and metro-access networks

The provisioning of very high bandwidth wireless services requires the use of architectures based on distributed antenna systems (DAS), which will be typically supported by an optical fibre infrastructure. In this context, the convergence between both wired and wireless worlds is a strong trend that may bring several benefits in terms of CAPEX and OPEX savings. It is therefore desirable to verify the suitability of next generation optical access networks to support wireless architectures based on DAS. The use of different types of multiplexing, along with the utilization of coherent transmission techniques, is being introduced on access, and also on metro-access networks, and this brings significant differences when compared to the networks being installed nowadays. Therefore, the aim of this work is to address and evaluate the support of DAS with these new access infrastructures, exploring their increased capacity and flexibility.