Novel ROF network architecture for providing both wireless and wired broadband services

We propose and experimentally demonstrate that a novel and low-cost radio over fiber network architecture for providing wireless and wired dual services at 2.5 Gb/s. The base-band signals are directly detected by a low-cost receiver with a 2 GHz bandwidth low-pass filter, while the RF signals are down-converted by a mixer and an electrical local oscillator signal. Our experimental results show the millimeter wave in this network architecture exhibits less than 1 dB power penalty over 20 km fiber after providing the dual services. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 49: 659–662, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.22243