<title>Optical subscriber interconnect system</title>

Abstract

To match the inherent needs of data traffic, office communications demand medium-speed connectionless packet transport in addition to circuit-switched voice and data transmission. Optical solutions to this requirement should be low in cost rather than extremely high in performance to be cost competitive with copper systems. A subscriber-premises system will be proposed which combines a digital private automatic branch exchange (PABX) with local area network (LAN) functionality. It is based on a double-star passive optical network, extending to optical wall outlets. The subsets with telephone functionality provide the opto/electrical conversion and give access to the packet channel via Terminal Adaptors (TA). Different types of customer LANs may coexist on the same network, since their data frames are embedded in an intermediate MAC-layer. The feasibility of transmission over multimode fibers at not aggregate bit rate of approx. 140 Mb/s at 1300 nm downstream and 780 nm upstream allowing the use of low-cost components (e.g. 780 nm compact-disc laser diodes) has been experimentally investigated. Calculations predict cost-of-ownership parity with conventional copper-based PABXs without LAN functionality and a cost-advantage over the usual separate LAN+PABX installations. The network topology, protocol and the implications of multimode transmission on the system will be discussed.