Demonstration of flexible multicasting and aggregation functionality for TWDM-PON

The time- and wavelength-division multiplexed passive optical network (TWDM-PON) has been recognized as an attractive solution to provide broadband access for the next-generation networks. In this paper, we propose flexible service multicasting and aggregation functionality for TWDM-PON utilizing multiple-pump four-wave-mixing (FWM) and cyclic arrayed waveguide grating (AWG). With the proposed scheme, multiple TWDM-PON links share a single optical line terminal (OLT), which can greatly reduce the network deployment expense and achieve efficient network resource utilization by load balancing among different optical distribution networks (ODNs). The proposed scheme is compatible with existing TDM-PON infrastructure with fixed-wavelength OLT transmitter, thus smooth service upgrade can be achieved. Utilizing the proposed scheme, we demonstrate a proof-of-concept experiment with 10-Gb/s OOK and 10-Gb/s QPSK orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signal multicasting and aggregating to seven PON links. Compared with back-to-back (BTB) channel, the newly generated multicasting OOK signal and OFDM signal have power penalty of 1.6 dB and 2 dB at the BER of 10−3, respectively. For the aggregation of multiple channels, no obvious power penalty is observed. What is more, to verify the flexibility of the proposed scheme, we reconfigure the wavelength selective switch (WSS) and adjust the number of pumps to realize flexible multicasting functionality. One to three, one to seven, one to thirteen and one to twenty-one multicasting are achieved without modifying OLT structure.