Interoperability of GPON and WiMAX for network capacity enhancement and resilience

Abstract

The interoperability of standard WiMAX and gigabit passive optical networks (GPONs) is shown to overcome the wireless spectrum congestion and provide resilience for GPON through the use of overlapping radio cells. The application of centralized control in the optical line terminal and time division multiplexing for upstream transmission enables efficient dynamic bandwidth allocation for wireless users on a single wavelength as well as minimized optical beat interference at the optical receiver. The viability of bidirectional transmission of multiple uncoded IEEE 802.16d channels by means of a single radio-frequency subcarrier at transmission rates of 50 and 15 Mbits/s downstream and upstream, respectively, for distances of up to 21 km of integrated GPON and WiMAX microcell links is demonstrated.