Scalability Study of All-Photonics Metro/ Access Network With Simultaneous Reception of Wavelength-Multiplexed Control and Main Signals

Research on the all-photonics metro/access network is active as the next generation communication system. It aims to provide high-throughput, low-latency, low-power-consumption connections via end-to-end optical paths that directly link users without o/e/o conversion. One issue with realizing this network is how to implement the remote-control channel cost-effectively. In this work, we propose a cost-effective control signal transmission system based on auxiliary management and control channel (AMCC) and wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) technology. 25-Gbit/s non-return-to-zero (NRZ) 40 km transmission confirms the feasibility of the proposed system. The experiment comprehensively examines the influence that upstream/downstream control signals and main signals on different paths have on each other's receiver sensitivity. With the appropriate parameters, the penalty on the main signal's receiver sensitivity due to upstream/downstream control signals can be reduced to just 0.5 dB. The proposed method can realize cost-effective control channels in the all-photonics metro/access network with minimal sensitivity degradation.