A WDM-based optical access network for wide-area gigabit access services

This article proposes and demonstrates a WDM-based access network that directly connects end users over a wide area to the center node and provides guaranteed full-duplex Gigabit Ethernet access services to each of over 100 users. The center node employs an optical carrier supply module that generates not only the optical carriers for the downstream signals but also those for the upstream signals. The latter are supplied to optical network units (ONUs) at users' homes/buildings via the network. Since the ONUs simply modulate the optical carriers supplied from the center node via the network, they are wavelength-independent.