Hybrid free space optical communication system and passive optical network with high splitting ratio for broadcasting data traffic

In this paper, we propose and demonstrate a free space optical (FSO) communication system with 10 Gbit s(-1) on-off keying traffic, which is integrated in a passive optical network (PON) for broadcasting wireless data. After a transmission distance of 25 km of single-mode fiber and a free space transmission length of 6 m, the observed optical sensitivity of the FSO signal can reach -35.2 dBm within the forward error correction level at the bit error ratio of 3.8 x 10(-3) . Here, according to the obtained results of experiment and simulation, the FSO signal can support 2048 remote optical wireless units (OWUs) for wireless access via the PON network in free space transmission lengths of 0 to 160 m. Moreover, the proposed FSO-PON system also can support 1024, 512 and 256 remote OWUs in free space transmission lengths of 250, 350 and 500 m, respectively.