Hybrid polymer optical fibre and visible light communication link for in-home network

The concept of hybrid polymer optical fibre (POF) and visible light communication (VLC) for in-home networking is experimentally evaluated in this paper. The performance evaluation is based on two schemes of discrete multitone (DMT) and multilevel pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) techniques. The combined effects of modal dispersion of the POF and the limited bandwidth of the phosphor converted illumination LEDs induced frequency selectivity in the heterogeneous link. Equalisers are subsequently used to ameliorate the frequency selectivity of the channel. Results show that from a limited link 3-dB bandwidth of 17 MHz, a data rate of 122 Mbps is attainable using DMT with bit-loading while 91 Mbps is achievable with the low complexity PAM-4. The experimental demonstration results presented in this paper show that the POF/VLC hybrid represents a viable concept to extend the optical bandwidth available in the access network to the in-home network.