Abstract
The advantages of using analogue optical networks for delivering radio signals from a central location to many remote antenna sites have been recognized. In a telecommnications context, radio signals may be for fixed radio access, cordless or mobile networks, but the same principles apply. By making use of the high bandwidth, low loss characteristics of optical fiber, all high frequency and signal processing functions can be performed centrally and signals can then be transported over the optical network directly at the carrier frequency. The remote sites then become very simple, requiring only optoelectronic conversion, filtering and linear amplification. This shifting of the complex functionality away from the remote site allow cheap, reliable, small and light-weight radio access points with low power consumption to be deployed. In this paper, we show that an electroabsorption modulation(EAM) may be used as a single component in such a radio access point, as a passive transceiver for small-sized cell(picocells).
