A 10 channel coherent optical FDM broadcasting system

The first demonstration results of a coherent optical frequency-division-multiplexing (FDM) system with a random-access channel selection scheme for CATV distribution application are reported. Indispensable technologies for the FDM coherent transmission such as channel separation locking, random-access channel selection, and polarization diversity were developed and applied to the system. The developed system has suitable features for use as an optical digital CATV, especially for CATV distribution system applications. It is estimated from a 400-Mb/s 10-channel FDM experiment with an 8-GHz frequency separation that 64 channel HDTV signals can be distributed to more than 2000 subscribers without repeaters. >