Broadband services distribution over large-core plastic optical fibre for in-door networks

1-mm core diameter Polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) plastic optical fibre (POF) has been recognized recently as a strong candidate for future indoor networks. Until now, most networks using such large-core POFs are based on a point-to-point (P2P) topology. This paper presents a novel large-core POF based point-to-multipoint (P2MP) in-door optical network infrastructure, which is more cost-efficient for larger buildings. By employing POF splitters, a P2MP POF network configuration offering converged transmission of broadband wired and wireless services is demonstrated. Distribution of a 2.2 Gb/s fractional discrete multitone signal and a 528-MHz ultra wideband radio signal simultaneously to four endusers is successfully achieved with a bit error rate (BER) better than 10-3 and an error vector magnitude (EVM) less than 15.5%, respectively. Up to 50 m transmission distance is achieved with off-the-shelf optical components. Hence all-optical P2MP infrastructures are a promising lowcost solution for high-speed in-door broadband communication.