Current trends for future provision of broadband, interactive and multimedia services over wireless media in both mobile and fixed cellular networks are- 1) to reduce cell size to accommodate more users and 2) to operate in the microwave/millimeter wave (mm-wave) frequency bands to avoid spectral congestion in the lower frequency bands. The development of a cost-effective Base Station (BSs) is a key to be success in the market. Radio-over-fiber (RoF) technology is a promising solution for this requirement. This technique involves modulating the radio frequency (RF) subcarrier onto an optical carrier for distribution over a fiber network. Optical fibers are attractive for RoF systems due to the following characteristics: very high bandwidth, low loss, immune to EMI, light weight, small cross section, low cost, and high flexibility. Such an advantageous system will be presented throughout this paper including the backgrounds, architectures, benefits and limitations, and its milestone.
[1]
E. Snitzer.
Optical fiber telecommunications
,
1982,
IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics.
[2]
A.M.J. Koonen,et al.
Radio-Over-MMF Techniques—Part II: Microwave to Millimeter-Wave Systems
,
2008,
Journal of Lightwave Technology.
[3]
R. Avo,et al.
Radio over fiber access network architecture employing reflective semiconductor optical amplifiers
,
2007,
2007 ICTON Mediterranean Winter Conference.
[4]
Yi Pan,et al.
Emerging Wireless LANs, Wireless PANs, and Wireless MANs: IEEE 802.11, IEEE 802.15, 802.16 Wireless Standard Family
,
2009
.
[5]
Mingtuo Zhou,et al.
Millimeter Wave Technology in Wireless PAN, LAN, and MAN
,
2007
.
[6]
Bong Kim,et al.
Radio over Fiber based Network Architecture
,
2005
.
[7]
M. Sauer,et al.
Radio over fiber for picocellular network architectures
,
2009,
2009 IEEE LEOS Annual Meeting Conference Proceedings.