flexibility and wavelength scalability, virtual point-to-point connection enabling each
individual end-user to be granted a single wavelength, protocol transparency and excellent
network security [1,2]. To practically deploy WDM-PONs, the main challenges are cost-
effectiveness and colorlessness of optical network units (ONUs). To address such challenges,
several techniques have been proposed, which include, for example, spectrum-slicing of super
luminescent diodes (SLDs) or optical amplifiers [3,4], wavelength tunable lasers in ONUs
[5,6] and remote modulation of reflective intensity modulators [7,8].
Among all the aforementioned techniques proposed previously, reflective intensity
modulator-based ONUs are very attractive for WDM-PONs since the implementation of
centrally-controlled dynamic wavelength management in an optical line terminal (OLT)
allows the reflected upstream signal transmission from the ONU in a wavelength agnostic
manner. More importantly, since ONU-side laser sources are not present, the ONU
transceiver complexity is greatly simplified and consequently the overall WDM-PON
installation cost is significantly reduced by a factor proportional to the total number ONUs
accommodated simultaneously in the network. To achieve reflective intensity modulation-
based cost-effective ONUs, reflective intensity modulators that can be utilized include, for
example, reflective semiconductor optical amplifiers (RSOAs) [9–11], reflective electro-
absorption modulators (REAMs) [12–14] and reflective Fabry-Perot lasers [15–17]. Among
these reflective intensity modulator candidates, REAMs can be easily scaled for data line
rates higher than 10Gbits/s compared to other reflective modulators due to their high
modulation bandwidths. For example, 40Gb/s transmission over 20km standard single mode
fiber (SSMF) with offline digital signal processing (DSP) has been achieved by using a
20GHz SOA-REAM.
To further enhance the performance and flexibility of WDM-PONs and still maintain their
compatibility with existing time-division-multiplexed (TDM) PONs, optical orthogonal
frequency division multiplexing (OOFDM) has been considered as one of the strongest
contenders for practical applications [18], since OOFDM has inherent and unique advantages
including adaptive provision of hybrid dynamic bandwidth allocation (DBA) in both the
frequency and time domains, significant reduction in network complexity, adaptability to
imperfect transmission system characteristics and potential for cost-effective mass
deployment. It is, therefore, preferable if use is made of OOFDM signals in REAM-based
ONUs in WDM-PONs incorporating SSMF systems utilizing simple intensity modulation and
direct detection (IMDD).
To exploit the feasibility of WDM-PONs incorporating colorless REAM-based ONUs, we
have experimentally achieved 10Gb/s real-time end-to-end transmissions of single-band
OOFDM (SB-OOFDM) signals over 25km SSMF [19]. However, to further improve the
transmission capacity of a colorless REAM-based SB-OOFDM ONU in a cost-effective
approach, system designers face great challenges, as higher speed digital-to-analogue
converters (DACs) and analogue-to-digital converters (ADCs) are required, this makes it
difficult to avoid a prohibitive ONU transceiver cost. Another important issue to consider
when employing ultra-high sampling speed DACs/ADCs in the SB-OOFDM transceivers is
the escalation of the data bus capacity between the converters and the DSP logic circuits.
These ultra-high capacity data buses can be challenging to implement when trying to meet
tight cost and power constraints.
By employing a multi-band OOFDM (MB-OOFDM) approach, where multiple OFDM
signals are frequency division multiplexed (FDM) in the electrical domain, virtually all the
aforementioned disadvantages associated with the SB-OOFDM approach are eliminated.
Firstly, the bandwidth requirements of key components such as DACs/ADCs are dictated
only by the sub-band bandwidth and are no longer dependent on the total system capacity.
The increased flexibility in component choice can be highly beneficial for greatly lowering
the ONU transceiver cost. Secondly, by careful selection of the sub-band transmission
capacity, the ONU performance can be designed to meet the required peak user transmission
capacity whilst maintaining sufficient intra-band DBA functionality. In addition, MB-
OOFDM also has the salient advantage of significantly reducing transceiver complexity in
Received 22 Jan 2013; revised 28 Mar 2013; accepted 2 Apr 2013; published 5 Apr 2013
8 April 2013 | Vol. 21, No. 7 | DOI:10.1364/OE.21.009167 | OPTICS EXPRESS 9169