Is fiber the catalyst for growth of the mobile wireless network?

This paper will focus on how the growth of the mobile wireless technology can be supported by optical fiber, through wireless over fiber technologies. The paper will include recent advances in the field of fiber-wireless convergence such as cloud-based radio-over-fiber (RoF), point-to-point RoF system and millimeter wave network architectures. The advances in the mobile networks to meet the demand of mobile broadband, is driving the size of the cells to reduce. These small cells will be a prominent feature in the next generation 4G and 5G technologies and these cells must be connected with a high speed backbone. RoF offers a technology for seamless link between the small cells and macrocells. Therefore the convergence of mobile wireless and optical fiber will be essential to accommodate the growth of bandwidth requirements, thus enabling a high speed channel at the access network.