Home Access Networks Using Optical Wireless Transmission

Fibre to the home and other "Last-mile" transmission technologies provide end-user data rates of at least 100 of Mbit/s. These technologies are currently deployed around the world, and in the short term gigabit-class home access networks will be required if this capacity is to be fully used, and new services are to be developed. First, high-speed line-of-sight systems can provide data rates limited by the system components, rather than any spectrum allocation, and the project aims to demonstrate Gbit/s wireless transmission in the near-infra-red region of the optical spectrum. Second, visible-light communications is an area of growing research interest, and a system that uses white light LEDs for both illumination and data broadcasting is under development as part of the OMEGA project.