Investigation of the effects of laser non-linearity and RIN in direct modulation hybrid wired/wireless PON systems employing an integrated two section laser

In this paper the transmission of OFDM based wired/wireless services for hybrid PONs using direct laser modulation is studied. To overcome the limitations imposed by direct modulation of cost effective low bandwidth laser transmitters, we make use of novel monolithically integrated Discrete Mode lasers and optical injection. The system includes a wired OFDM signal, operating at 12.5Gb/s and three wireless signals delivering Long Term Evolution (LTE) services encoded with 16 QAM. The system's performance is evaluated for various relative power ratios of the wired/wireless signals. Additionally, the impact of Relative Intensity Noise (RIN) on such a hybrid system is studied through computer simulations. •We study the benefit of using spectral nulls in OFDM-PON's services for transport of wireless signals.•To reduce costs direct modulation and monolithically integrated Discrete Mode lasers employing optical injection are used.•The impact of laser nonlinearity and RIN on the hybrid system is studied through experiments and simulations.•The application of optical injection is seen to aid the impact of laser nonlinearity and RIN on the system.