Performance Analysis Of Hybrid Optical–Wireless Access Network Physical Layer

The hybrid optical–wireless access network (HOWAN) is a favorable architecture for next generation access network. It is an optimal combination of an optical backhaul and a wireless front–end for an efficient access network. In this paper, the new architecture of the HOWAN is proposed and designed based on both a wavelengths division multiplexing/time division multiplexing passive optical network (WDM/TDM PON) at the optical backhaul and a worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) technology at the wireless front–end. It is demonstrated 2 Gb/s for downstream/upstream can be achieved at optical backhaul along 20 km of single mode fiber (SMF) for each wavelength channel with bit error rate (BER) of 10–9, at a data rate of 30 Mb/s per Base Station (BS) along a 5 km outdoor wireless link with BER of 10–5. Key words: Hybrid optical–wireless access network (HOWAN); Passive optical network (PON); Wavelength division multiplexing (WDM); Wireless mesh network (WMN); Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)