Implementation and Evaluation of a Gigabit Ethernet FSO Link for 'The Last Metre and Last Mile Access Network'

In this paper, we propose a simple and a low cost 1 Gbps Ethernet free-space optical (FSO) communications link, which can be used both for the last meter and last mile access networks. In the emerging fifth generation wireless systems, which require at least an order of magnitude increase in the peak data rates and three orders of magnitude increase in network capacity with reduced latency, deploying multiple technologies will play a crucial role to meet these requirements. One possible complementary wireless technology to the radio frequency is the unlicensed FSO, which can bridge the gap between the existing RF wireless and optical fibre communication networks by providing high data rates, low installation costs and high energy efficiency. In this work, we propose a high-speed FSO system, which can be readily implemented using off the shelf components, and assess its performance experimentally under turbulence and fog conditions using the dedicated indoor atmospheric chamber. We show that, the proposed system under the turbulence condition with a scintillation index of 0.43 offers almost the same data rate (i.e., ∼99%) as the link under a clear channel, while the packeterror-rate reduces from 10⁻³ to 2 × 10⁻².