Optical CDMA and WDMA in the access network

Abstract

Optical CDMA provides one avenue to sharing the vast bandwidth of optical fiber among a number of active users in a network. In this work we address two questions central to considering the areas of applicability of CDMA in optics: (1) <i>How do we compare fairly optical CDMA codes of different families, and what do we conclude?</i> (2) <i>How do we compare optical CDMA performance with that of conventional optical WDMA?</i> To answer the first question, we present a method of comparing optical CDMA codes of different families, sizes and weights. We outline why the traditional performance metric of bit-error rate versus number of simultaneous users is lacking and propose a different performance measure -- the peak throughput normalized with respect to the size of the code. This metric is used to show that optical-orthogonal codes (OOCs) with a weight of 4 perform best at low offered loads while OOCs with weight 5 should be used at higher offered loads. By applying the technique across different families of codes, we demonstrate that multi-wavelength OOCs (MWOOCs) perform better than both OOCs (by a factor of approximately 1.25) and asymmetric prime-hop codes (by a factor of approximately 3.5), over a wide range of offered loads. In answer to the second question, we present a comparison of the performance of optical code-division multiple-access (CDMA) systems with that of a wavelength-division multiple-access (WDMA) system. The multiple-access techniques are applied in a time-slotted broadcast local-area network. The utilization, defined as the throughput per unit of time-domain bandwidth expansion, and packet delay are used as metrics of performance. When more than seven wavelengths are available, optical CDMA systems using asymmetric prime-hop codes and all-optical signal processing are shown to have higher peak utilization and lower corresponding delay than a WDMA system with the same number of wavelengths. When the encoders/decoders operate at the chip rate, the utilization of optical CDMA exceeds that of WDMA at high offered loads; however, the peak utilization of the WDMA system is still superior.