Performance Improvement of Multi-IFoF-Based Mobile Fronthaul Using Dispersion-Induced Distortion Mitigation With IF Optimization

Nowadays, there have been many research works on multiple-intermediate-frequency-over-fiber (multi-IFoF)-based mobile fronthaul link to accommodate explosive mobile data traffic. The performance of multi-IFoF transmission scheme is affected by fiber dispersion-induced second-order distortion in 1.5 μm. Thus, we derive an appropriate frequency plan to avoid the distortion. By utilizing the frequency plan, we successfully transmit 24- 20-MHz long-term evolution advanced (LTE-A) signals over 60-km single-mode fiber (SMF) without any penalties from the distortion. We also show the transmission performance when transmitting larger number of IF carriers in the limited modulation bandwidth so the penalties from the distortion are inevitable. We confirm that 72- 20-MHz LTE-A carriers can be transmitted over 30-km SMF within only 1.5-GHz modulation bandwidth.