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A Perspective on Optical-Wireless Converged NG-FTTH Networks Using Directly Modulated Lasers

(1)

Adolfo Cartaxo(1), Jos A. P. Morgado(1), Daniel Fonseca(1,2) Group of Research on Optical Fiber Telecommunication Systems (GROFTS), Instituto de Telecomunicaes, Instituto Superior Tcnico, Av. Rovisco Pais 1, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal (2) Nokia Siemens Networks Portugal, S. A., R. Irmos Siemens, 2720-093 Amadora, Portugal (1) Phone: (+351) 218418476, Fax: (+351) 218417164, email: adolfo.cartaxo@lx.it.pt

ABSTRACT OFDM-based next generation fiber to the home (NG-FTTH) networks using directly modulated lasers (DMLs) have been proposed as a solution to deliver quintuple play services addressing cost-effective optical-wireless convergence. In this article, we highlight the principles and discuss the main technical challenges of the optical infrastructure of these networks. A first experimental assessment of transmission of coexisting baseband and ultra-wideband signals along distances typical of NG-FTTH networks using DMLs is presented. Keywords: directly modulated lasers, NG-FTTH networks, optical-wireless convergence, orthogonal frequency division multiplexing. 1. INTRODUCTION Today, fibre to the home (FTTH) networks are being deployed worldwide delivering triple play services: Internet access, phone and Internet protocol television (IPTV), and enabling high data rate (tens or hundreds Mbit/s) provision to users premises using time division multiple access (TDMA) and line rates of the order of 1 Gbit/s, with reaches of a few tens of km. Communication duplexing is achieved using wavelength division duplexing (WDD) with a transmitter laser at the optical line termination (OLT) at the central office (CO), and another transmitter laser at the optical network termination (ONT) at the users premises. We call this kind of WDD as conventional WDD (CWDD). Wireless services are already available at users premises to improve the terminal equipment portability of services delivered by current FTTH networks, as illustrated in Fig. 1 by the WiFi link. However, wireless services are not delivered by current FTTH networks. Therefore, we may pose the question Why wireless services in FTTH networks? The reason for that is the need of delivery of broadband wireless services to the terminal equipment at users premises [1]. However, this need raises several problems, namely the modulated data (RF) has to be demodulated prior to transmission along current FTTH networks, and this may be expensive and opaque. In addition, in many situations, the signal needs to be re-modulated at users premises to be received at the terminal equipment (laptop, TV set, etc.), increasing the cost of the solution. Therefore, we face several challenges on the implementation of next generation FTTH (NG-FTTH) networks addressing the optical-wireless convergence in a cost-effective way. Some of them are discussed in this article. The article is organized as follows. First, the concept of optical-wireless converged NG-FTTH networks is introduced together with our view of converged NG-FTTH networks. Two technical solutions for the implementation of optical-wireless converged NG-FTTH networks are compared afterwards. First experimental results that assess the possibility of using directly modulated lasers (DMLs) for distribution of broadband wireless services together with baseband (BB) Gigabit services along distances typical of NG-FTTH networks are presented. We conclude by summarising the main ideas.

Figure 1. Scheme of current FTTH networks. 2. OPTICAL-WIRELESS CONVERGED NG-FTTH NETWORKS We begin by discussing several important points related to the services that NG-FTTH networks are going to deliver. Services to be enabled by NG-FTTH networks are usually called quintuple-play (5-play) services and include Internet, phone, IPTV / high definition TV (HDTV), higher capacity wireless services WiMax, ultra wideband (UWB) and long term evolution (LTE) femtocell and home security/control. In order to deliver those

978-1-4577-0882-4/11/$26.00 2011 IEEE

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higher capacity wireless services in a cost-effective manner, NG-FTTH networks should fulfil the following wish-list: i) to be transparent to wireless services (only filtering, amplification and radiation at users premises; no re-modulation or frequency conversion); ii) to be transparent to wireless standards; iii) to accept wireless already-standardised equipment (to achieve cost reduction). To be future-proof, the wireless services should present a high throughput and use modulations highly resilient to channel impairments. New standardized broadband wireless technologies (WiMax, OFDM-UWB and LTE) use orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signals and its variants to achieve those two properties. Table 1. OFDMbased wireless signals properties, according to the corresponding standards. Sub-carrier spacing Nominal central frequency Bandwidth Bit rate Power levels LTE 15 kHz 2.6 GHz 20 MHz 33.3 Mbps < 13 dBm WiMax 89 kHz 3.5 GHz 18 MHz 30.5 Mbps < 27 dBm UWB sub-band Nsub 4.12 MHz (2.904+0.528.Nsub) GHz 528 MHz 640 Mbps < -41.3 dBm/MHz

Table 1 shows some of OFDM-based wireless signals characteristics. We stress the high bit rate of those wireless services (particularly of UWB), the corresponding large bandwidth used (the 14 UWB sub-bands spread up to 10.6 GHz), and the different central frequencies indicating different locations of the spectrum occupancy. This fact allows their simultaneous transmission along a channel that passes all those frequencies.
Electrical spectrum Baseband OFDM WSG: Wireless Signal Group BB: Base-Band UWB
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Figure 2. Spectrum occupancy by the coexisting BB and wireless signals grouped in the WSG. In this way, OFDM-based services allow each service using its own band and OFDM-based signal format. This feature makes easier signal / service extraction from the mix of services. A network developed with this feature can be seen as a service-oriented network. It should be stressed that other proposed OFDM-based PONs do not support this feature [2], [3]. As a result, a fully OFDM-based network enables 5-play service convergence employing standard OFDM-based wireless technologies combined with BB-OFDM for Internet access, phone, and other services. The spectrum occupancy of the 5-play services is schematically illustrated in Fig. 2.

Figure 3. Scheme of the architecture of the optical-wireless NG-FTTH network. Future-proof access networks must address the integration of metro and access networks in a single hybrid metro-access (HMA) network [4], [5] in order to reduce the cost of infrastructure and the complexity of requiring a large number of network elements in current metro and access networks. These HMA networks have optical amplification performed at the CO, where the OLT is located, or at the remote node (RN), and the services are delivered to the ONTs using a passive distribution sub-network, see Fig. 3. Reaches up to about 100 km and bit rates of the order of gigabit per second [5] are usually indicated for these networks. Therefore, the converged NG-FTTH is a HMA network that presents fully converged services: both baseband (GigabitEthernet provision) and standard wireless (WiMax, UWB and LTE) radio-over-fibre signals are transmitted along the NG-FTTH network. At the users premises, the ONT ensures the distribution of Internet, phone, and home security and control services by the different terminal equipments, and radiates the different wireless services each one at its band. Additionally, OFDM-based signals allow a cost-effective fully centralised network 2

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architecture using the same management strategy for all services with simultaneous compensation of transmission impairments of both the optical and radio paths, in a centralised point in the network. This allows the reduction of deployment cost, and operational and management savings. 3. SCHEMES FOR OPTICAL-WIRELESS CONVERGED NG-FTTH NETWORKS Two schemes for the implementation of converged optical-wireless networks were envisaged [6]: the single wavelength (per communication direction) scheme, as in GPON (current FTTH networks), in which one BB and M WSG signals are shared by N ONTs; and the WDM scheme, in which each ONT is served by a different wavelength that carries one BB and one WSG signal. The selection of the scheme depends critically on the required capacity of the WSG. The case of at least some of the 14 UWB sub-bands are available to each user was assumed. If the network delivers to each user a WSG carrying different information depending on the users wish, then the number M of WSG signals carried in the single wavelength scheme needs to be very reduced (just a few); otherwise, the bandwidth of each ONT would be unacceptably wide (the bandwidth of each ONT would be ~M10 GHz). This means that the advantage of the single wavelength scheme of sharing the infrastructure resources is very limited. As a consequence, only the WDM solution can provide the required wireless capacity (several UWB sub-bands) per user with electrical bandwidth not exceeding ~10 GHz for a reasonable number (tens) of ONTs (different wavelengths). This is achieved at the expense of higher capital expenditures, and more complex configuration / maintenance of the ONTs in case of using CWDD. Further details of the analysis can be found in [6]. 4. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS OF COEXISTING BB+WSG SIGNALS USING DMLs The objective of this first experiment is to assess some limitations due to the optical transmission of coexisting BB and WSG signals along distances typical of HMA networks in a CWDD configuration, using DMLs. This is an attractive solution due to the cost-effectiveness of the DMLs. The considered experimental set-up is depicted in Fig. 4. A single wavelength and 100 km of reach are considered. A detailed analysis will be presented elsewhere. Most part of the experimental setup is similar to the one described in [7]. The main differences are related to the coexisting BB+WSG signal generation and demodulation. In this first experiment, the WSG is composed by only 3 UWB sub-bands.
Resolution: 1 MHz 5 dB per division 5 dB per division Resolution: 20 MHz 5 dB per division 2.06 GHz per division
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Figure 4. Experimental set-up used in the first assessment of coexistence of BB and WSG signals using a DML.
AWG Arbitrary Waveform Generator, EF Electrical Filter, SSMF Standard Singlemode Fibre, EDFA Erbium Doped Fibre Amplifier, OF Optical Filter, PIN Positive Intrinsic Negative, DSO Digital Sampling Oscilloscope.

The OFDM-(BB+UWB) signal is generated off-line and converted to an electrical signal by a Tektronix interleaving Arbitrary-Waveform Generator (AWG) 7122B operating at 20 Gsamples/s in continuous mode. The generated OFDM-UWB signal is based on ECMA-368 standard [8]. Each OFDM-UWB sub-band uses 128 subcarriers, and its bandwidth is 528 MHz. The OFDM-BB signal uses 256 carriers (from which 172 for data, 5 for pilots and 79 with zeros), and its bandwidth is 660 MHz. Quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK) is used as a modulation format of the information subcarriers for both OFDM-UWB and OFDM-BB signals. The OFDMUWB signal bit-rate is 640 Mbit/s for each sub-band. The OFDM-BB signal bit-rate is 1.26 Gbit/s. In the OFDM-(BB+UWB) modulator, each UWB sub-band signal is filtered by a rectangular low-pass filter (LPF) with a bandwidth of 264 MHz to reduce aliasing effects, while the OFDM-BB signal is filtered by a 6th order Bessel LPF with a -3 dB bandwidth of 680 MHz. Afterwards, the first three OFDM-UWB sub-bands centered at 3.43, 3.96, and 4.49 GHz are properly combined with the OFDM-BB signal. The modulation indexes of the composite electrical signal, overall three UWB sub-bands, and BB are 16%, 14% and 8%, respectively. The OFDM-(BB+UWB) signal is converted to the optical domain using a low cost commercially available DML, and transmitted along 100 km of SSMF. At the demodulation stage, the OFDM-(BB+UWB) signal is acquired in real time, at 20 Gsamples/s, using a digital sampling oscilloscope (DSO) 81204A from Agilent, that is connected to a personal computer. From each experimental run, 64 OFDM-BB and 64 OFDM-UWB symbols are used. This limit is imposed by the DSO

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memory size. Each OFDM-BB and OFDM-UWB signal is properly separated and demodulated off-line in the OFDM-(BB+UWB) demodulator. Each signal is down-converted and filtered to reduce the noise power: for the OFDM-UWB signal, a rectangular LPF with a bandwidth of 264 MHz is used; for the OFDM-BB signal, a 6th order Bessel LPF with a -3 dB bandwidth of 680 MHz is used. After the fast Fourier transform (FFT) block, the equalizer transfer function is estimated from pilot sub-carrier information using 3rd and 5th order interpolating polynomials, for the OFDM-BB and OFDM-UWB signals, respectively.

(a) (b) (c) (d) Figure 5. Constellations of the received signals after transmission along 100 km of SSMF using a DML. (a) BB, (b) UWB sub-band 1, (c) UWB sub-band 2, (d) UWB sub-band 3. Fig. 5 shows the constellations of the received signals after transmission along 100 km of SSMF for an optical signal-to-noise ratio of 25 dB. The constellations show that the quality of the BB signal is significantly better than the one of the UWB sub-bands, and decreases with the increasing of UWB center frequency. This increasing degradation is attributed to the increase of distortion caused by the transmission system, and particularly by the DML, as it has been already observed in [7]. The EVMs obtained after transmission along 100 km of SSMF are -15.6 dB for BB, -9.3 dB for the first UWB sub-band, -7.2 dB for the second UWB subband, and -6.7 dB for the third UWB sub-band. These levels are much higher than the -17 dB indicated for each UWB sub-band by ECMA [8], but can lead to acceptable bit error ratios when using forward error correction. Significant improvement of performance is expected by increasing the linearity of the system, particularly of the DML, allowing higher modulation indexes with similar distortion levels. This is the main challenge of the CWDD architecture. Other limitation of the WDM solution is the reduced number of wavelengths available at the C (or C+L) band. This means a reduced number (a few tens) of ONTs per OLT. One way of increasing the number of ONTs per OLT is using narrower channel separation. However, this increases the crosstalk between channels. Assessment of the channel separation of OFDM-based NG-FTTH networks required to keep the crosstalk at acceptable levels is still to be assessed. 5. CONCLUSIONS We have presented a perspective on optical-wireless converged NG-FTTH networks, and discussed the main features and technical challenges of the optical part of these networks. First experimental results suggest the possibility of implementing optical-wireless converged NG-FTTH networks using DMLs. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This work was partly supported in part by Fundao para a Cincia e a Tecnologia from Portugal within TURBO-PTDC/EEA-TEL/104358/2008 project, and by the EU within the European project Fully-Converged Quintuple-Play Integrated Optical-Wireless Access Architectures FIVER FP7-ICT-2009-4-249142. Authors thank to Filipe Carvalho for providing Figures 1 and 3 of this paper. REFERENCES [1] Y. Yan, et al.: Integrated resource management framework in hybrid optical wireless networks, IET Optoelectronics, vol. 4, no.6, December 2010, pp.267-279. [2] N. Cvijetic, et al.: Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access PON (OFDMA-PON) for colorless upstream transmission beyond 10 Gb/s, IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun., pp. 781-790, 2010. [3] L. Chen et al.: A novel scheme for seamless integration of ROF with centralized lightwave OFDM-WDMPON system, J. Lightwave Technol., pp. 2786-2791, 2009. [4] S. Smolorz, et al.: Next generation access networks: PIEMAN and beyond, International Conference on Photonics in Switching (PS) 2009, Pisa, Italy, September 2009, pp. 1-4. [5] T. Pfeiffer: Converged heterogeneous optical metro-access networks, European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC) 2010, Torino, Italy, 19-23 September, 2010, paper Tu.5.B.1, pp. 1-6. [6] C. Rodrigues, et al.: Evolution of FTTH networks based on radio-over-fibre, submitted to ICTON2011. [7] D. Fonseca, et al.: Transmission of multi-band OFDM-UWB signals along NG-FTTH networks using directly modulated lasers, Proc. 2011 OFC/NFOEC'11, paper OWK2, Mar. 2011. [8] High Rate Ultra Wideband PHY and MAC Standard, ECMA-368, December, 2008.