Performance Impact of Signal Reflections in a Single–Fiber Bidirectional System

Single–fiber bidirectional transmission systems using the same wavelength for both directions suffer from reflection induced interference. Experimental results demonstrate the dependence of system performance and of the threshold of the forward error correction (FEC) on signal waveform variations induced by fiber effects. Larger signal distortions lead to slightly larger impact of the interference, but reduce the shift of the FEC threshold to smaller bit error ratios.

I. Introduction

In single–fiber bidirectional systems, signals are transmitted in opposite directions in a single fiber for exchanging information between two nodes. As a result, cost for network deployment and maintenance are reduced, downtimes caused by system failures are diminished and the capacity per fiber is increased.