As part of the Acreo-led EU ALPHA project, scientists at Politecnico di Torino (POLITO) in Italy have demonstrated a system transferring Gigabit Ethernet over a plastic optical fibre (POF), a media very much similar to a fishing line.

POF commercially available products offer Fast Ethernet (100 Mbit/s) over some tens of meters. Within ALPHA, the upgrade to Gigabit Ethernet (1 Gbit/s) transmission over the same fibre has been successfully demonstrated by the ALPHA partner Luceat. Furthermore, together with the partner Telsey, the first in the world home gateway equipped with Gigabit Ethernet POF ports has been demonstrated.

Driven by various emerging broadband services, end-users’ demand for transmission bandwidth increases more than 70% per year and are thus pushing for more powerful home networks, soon Gigabit per second links are required even inside our apartments. One way to meet the increasing demand is the use of POFs. POF links are easy to install, in particular, inside existing power ducts. POF advantages have been recently tested in the framework of the Acreo-led EU ALPHA project thanks to pilot installations in a real life environment by Acreo in Sweden.

”The ”fishing line” is about to become a part of our home network, replacing traditional Cat5/6 cables, due to its smaller dimensions, immunity to electromagnetic interference and the fact that there is no need of connectors” says ALPHA co-ordinator Dr. Mikhail Popov at Acreo.

All POF solutions up to now have always been based on two fibres, i.e. two ”fishing lines” were required for transmitting ”to” and ”from” the user, respectively. Within the ALPHA project, the group at POLITO has gone one step further, demonstrating a transmission system that uses one single fibre for both directions, so that the cable diameter can be reduced to only 2mm (1mm for the fibre itself, and approximately 1mm for the protective coating). This diameter reduction will greatly ease installations in the home environment, where most often the only way to make the installation in the house is to use the, often very crowded, existing ducts. For comparison, the most common solution for today cabled home network, the ubiquitous Cat5 cable, is more than 5 mm thick.

The system was tested with real time Gigabit Ethernet traffic up to 75 metres, a distance that easily cover all home networking requirements.

For further information please contact:

• ALPHA co-ordinator Dr. Mikhail Popov at Acreo,
  E-mail: Mikhail.popov@acreo.se
• Prof. Roberto Gaudino at Politecnico di Torino, Italy
  E-mail: roberto.gaudino@polito.it

About Alpha project
The ALPHA project investigates innovative architectural and transmission solutions based on the manifold of optical fibres (single-, multi-mode and plastic) as well as wireless technology to support both wired and wireless services in a converged network infrastructure. The focus is on using the newest physical layer achievements, architecture solutions and adequate control and management to reach a yet unprecedented end-to-end provisioned capacity for access and in-building networks at a fraction of the price of today’s technologies and to simultaneously include the transport of existing 2G/3G and Beyond 3G (B3G) signals whether they are Internet Protocol (IP) or non-IP-based.
www.ict-alpha.eu

About Acreo
Acreo is one of Europe’s top research companies providing breaking edge results within the field of electronics, optics and communication technologies. Turning academic research into commercial products, Acreo offers value-adding technology solutions for growth and competitiveness in industry and society. The types of assignments are ranging from feasibility studies, long term research projects, prototyping and small scale production, to verification and testing. Acreo also supports small and medium sized companies with technology transfer, business networks and financial advice. Acreo is part of Swedish ICT and has about 140 employees located in Kista (headquarter), Norrköping and Hudiksvall in Sweden.

About Politecnico di Torino
Politecnico di Torino is one of the main Engineering Universities in Italy, having enrolled in 2010 29.300 students studying on 96 courses, 18 of them being held in English. The Electronic Department, inside which this research was carried out, has an excellent track in scientific and technological research, demonstrated by the participation to many EU projects and by four ISI Highly Cited scientists working in the institution.
www.polito.it

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