An analysis of linear digital equalization in 50Gbit/s HS-PONs to compensate the combined effect of chirp and chromatic dispersion

Intensity-Modulation-Direct-Detection (IM/DD) is currently applied for Higher Speed Passive Optical Networks (HS-PONs), which are undergoing standardization by ITU-T [1] . The main constraints are Chromatic Dispersion (CD), which induces dips in the amplitude of the channel frequency response, and chirp, which adds a parasitic angle modulation term to the signal. The combined effect of CD and chirp impacts the position and depths of the fading dips, limiting channel capacity even more [2] , [3] . Digital equalization at receiver have been proposed as solutions to increase propagation distance. Nevertheless, at 50Gbit/s the channel penalties are higher and techniques to compensate the impairments have to be investigated.