Effect of the Multiplexer Position in Rayleigh-Limited WDM-PONs with Amplified-Reflective ONU

The influence of the position of a multiplexer in the access network with centralized seeded-source is analytically and experimentally reported. In such system, the limitation is caused by the Rayleigh backscattering crosstalk from both the carrier signal and the upstream data. The loss introduced by the multiplexer modifies the backscatter signals and the power of the crosstalk is decreased when the distribution element is placed near one of the extremes of the access network. The results also reveal that moderate values of the gain perform better, as the backscatter of the upstream data increases with the amplification introduced at the ONU.