Weather Influence on Performance of a Seamless Free Space Optic (FSO) Link in a PON Scenario

The upcoming 5G communications require for high bandwidth data rates that challenges the current fiber-wireless convergence based on Radio Frequency links. Free Space Optical (FSO) communications represents a valid alternative to meet the high data rate requirements. In particular, passive links based on fiber-FSO-fiber are promising to meet the further requirements for energy efficient and scalable networks, since the active equipment can be kept remote with respect to the link. The disadvantages of outdoor FSO based communications traditionally relate to the effects of the weather conditions on the link performance. This paper reports a direct experimental correlation of the weather parameters under observation with the optical power trend in a fiber-outdoor FSO-fiber link. In order to evaluate the FSO link in a real network scenario, the performance in terms of received data rate of the link in a passive optical network configuration is reported.