Contents I. INTRODUCTION
In today's homes, there is a variety of communication networks: coaxial copper cable for video and radio services, twisted pair copper cables for telephony services, cat-5 cables and wireless LAN for IP-based data transfer, infra-red for remote control, etc. A single network integrating all these services would simplify considerably the maintenance and upgrading, and would enable new functionalities by e.g. linking services of different nature. Optical fiber with its huge bandwidth and signal format transparency is an attractive medium for such an integrated network; see Fig. 1. An in-building fiber network can transport both wired and wireless services. Multimode fiber, and in particular large-core polymer optical fiber (POF), is easy to install, and optical transceivers for multimode fiber links are relatively cheap. There also is a large installed-base of silica multimode fiber in office buildings. However, optical power splitting functions are more complex to realize with multimode fiber; hence mostly point-to-point network topologies or point-tomultipoint opaque (i.e. with opto-electronic-optical signal splitters) network topologies are deployed. As an alternative, bend-insensitive single-mode fiber may be considered, which requires more delicate splicing techniques but offers higher bandwidths and optical power splitting devices are more readily available. Hence this fiber type may be better suited for all-optical point-to-multipoint network architectures such as appropriate for large buildings. Integrating wired and wireless services in a single optical fiber network
