Overview of the FABULOUS EU Project: Final System Performance Assessment With Discrete Components

In this paper, we present the most comprehensive system demonstrator realized so far inside the FABULOUS project, an EU 7th Framework Program European research project. The architecture proposed in FABULOUS is based on frequency division multiplexed PON and uses a self-coherent and reflective approach in the upstream. The demonstration presented in this paper uses discrete optoelectronics components. We will show system experiments realized with five active optical network units, together with the emulation of other 27 ONUs ASE noise, demonstrating that such network is capable of an upstream transmission of 32 Gb/s over 40 km of dark fiber and an attenuation of 31 dB, in compliancy with ODN class N2 of the latest PON standards. In addition, we will demonstrate, thanks to the flexibility of frequency multiplexing, that the network can adapt its performances to the link conditions, achieving higher aggregate bit rates or higher losses depending on the link quality that every user in the network experiences. To conclude, we will investigate on the feasibility of the required digital signal processing onto FPGA or ASIC platforms.