Radio-over-fiber optical polarization-multiplexed networks for 3GPP wireless carrier-aggregated MIMO provision

Abstract

This paper proposes and demonstrates experimentally the application of optical polarization-multiplexed radio-over-fiber wireless backhauling of fully standard 3GPP carrier-aggregated multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) signals. The experimental work demonstrates successful long-reach optical transmission of 3GPP carrier-aggregated LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) signals using 2×2 MIMO spatial diversity. The suitability of MIMO provision using radio-over-fiber optical links is demonstrated over different E-UTRA frequency division duplex frequency bands. The performance of electrical carrier aggregation is evaluated in different configurations comprising one, three and five LTE-A component carriers of 10 and 20 MHz bandwidth each. The experimental results demonstrate successful 2 × 2 MIMO radio-over-fiber polarization-multiplexed transmission of five LTE-A carriers over 25 km, three LTE-A carriers over 75 km and an LTE-A carrier over 100 km of standard single mode fiber to provide pervasive MIMO wireless service to a large number of users.