Full-duplex fiber-wireless link for alternative wired and 40-GHz band wireless access based on differential quaternary phase-shift optical single sideband millimeter-wave signal

Abstract. A full-duplex fiber-wireless link with a uniform single sideband differential quaternary phase-shift keying optical millimeter-wave signal is proposed to provide wired or 40-GHz band wireless access alternatively. The uniform optical millimeter-wave signal that supports services for wired or wireless users is produced via an LiNbO3 Mach-Zehnder modulator. After being transmitted to the hybrid optical network unit (HONU), it can be demodulated in different patterns on the demand of the user terminals for wired or wireless access. Simultaneously, part of the blank optical carrier abstracted from it is reused as the uplink optical carrier, so the HONU is free from the laser source, and thus, the complexity and cost of the system are reduced. Moreover, since the two tones of the dual-tone optical millimeter wave come from the same source, they maintain high coherency even after being transmitted over fiber. Additionally, the downlink data are carried by one tone of the dual-tone optical millimeter wave, so the downlink optical millimeter-wave signal suffers little from the fiber chromatic dispersion and laser phase noise. The theoretical analysis and simulation results show that our proposed full-duplex link for alternative wired and wireless access maintains good performance even when the transmission link with standard single mode fiber is extended to 30 km.