Wide-band lightwave distribution system using subcarrier multiplexing

A description is given of a bidirectional lightwave distribution system based on subcarrier multiplexing. Eight independent wideband channels (180 Mb/s/channel) are transmitted from the head-end on one 1.3- mu m wavelength laser as frequency-shift-keyed (FSK) subcarriers, between 2.6 and 4.7 GHz. Each receiving node uses a parallel-resonant p-i-n FET receiver, a microwave bandpass filter and a limiter-discriminator demodulator to select and demodulate the appropriate channel. A 45-Mb/s return channel is provided from each node to the head-end on a separate subcarrier frequency. Error-free bidirectional transmission is obtained without penalties from laser nonlinearities, optical reflections or interference, or interchannel interference from closely spaced subcarrier channels.< >