Toward Next Generation Broadband Radio-over-Fiber Systems: Technological Challenges in the Millimeters-Wave Band

In this paper, we present a review based in the most relevant scientific works of radio-over-fiber technology. The most important issues of the state-of-the-art evolution are exposed. We show a description of the main devices and the most recent experimental tests that suggest the integration between wired and wireless networks, and the convergence in heterogeneous networks. In this review, we identify a trend toward the increase of the radiofrecuency-carrier in the millimeter-wave bands (75-100 GHz) which show that the next generation of radio-over-fiber system will operate in this band of large capacity available. The challenge consisting of reaching multi-Gbps wireless transmissions in these systems very soon.