Next generation optical access network with centralized digital OLT

1. An optical access network with centralized digital optical line termination OLT comprising:

an optical line termination (OLT) unit having a digital transmitter and a coherent receiver for downstream signal transmitting and upstream signal receiving; and

at least one optical network unit ONU with transceiver functions for communicating with said OLT unit over an optical path, said ONU including an analog transceiver with intensity modulation and single photodiode detection;

wherein said digital transmitter includes digital signal processing DSP module, digital-to-analog conversion DAC module, and the coherent receiver in the DSP module that can be shared by one or more of said ONUs in said network, said DSP module reducing or removing dispersion and non-linearity effects in said network and said coherent receiver enabling performance of said downstream stream signal transmitting to match that of said upstream signal receiving in said OLT, said coherent receiver having a plurality of ADCs coupled to a Colorless, Directionless, Contentionless (CDC) communicating with a phase locked loop and to an on-off keying OOK demapper.

2. The network of claim 1 , wherein said DSP comprises a client interface coupled to a forward error correction FEC, on/off-keying component, a pre-colorless directionless, contentionless CDC component, a forward non-linearity compensation, a pre-chirping, an up-sampling, an up-conversion and a pre-equalization.

3. The network of claim 1 , wherein said coherent receiver comprises an optical hybrid coupled to photo-detection array for respective outputs from said optical hybrid and providing inputs to respective ADC components that output to said DSP.

4. The network of claim 1 , wherein said DSP comprises an array of colorless directionless contentionless CDC components coupled to respective phase lock loops that output to an on/off-keying de-mapping, said de-mapping coupled to a forward error correction followed by a client interface.

5. A method by an optical access network with centralized digital optical line termination COLT) comprising the steps of:

providing an optical line termination unit having a digital transmitter and a coherent receiver for downstream signal transmitting and upstream signal receiving; and

communicating, with at least one optical network unit ONU with an analog transceiver functions, with said OLT unit over an optical path a least one optical network unit with transceiver functions for, said ONU including an analog transceiver with intensity modulation and single photodiode detection;

wherein said digital transmitter includes digital signal processing DSP module, digital-to-analog conversion DAC module and analog-to-digital conversion ADC functions that can be shared by all multiple ones of said ONU in said network, said DSP module client interface coupled to a forward error correction FEC, on/off-keying component, a pre-colorless, directionless, contentionless (CDC) component, forward non-linearity compensation, pre-chirping, up-sampling, up-conversion and pre-equalization, said DSP module reducing or removing dispersion and non-linearity effects in said network and said coherent receiver enabling performance of said downstream stream signal transmitting to match that of said upstream signal receiving in said OLT, said coherent receiver having a plurality of ADCs coupled to a CDC communicating with a phase locked loop and to an on-off keying OOK demapper.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein said DSP comprises a client interface coupled to a forward error correction FEC, on/off-keying component, a pre-colorless directionless, contentionless CDC component, a forward non-linearity compensation, a pre-chirping, an up-sampling, an up-conversion and a pre-equalization.

7. The method of claim 5 , wherein said coherent receiver comprises an optical hybrid coupled to photo-detection array for respective outputs from said optical hybrid and providing inputs to respective ADC components that output to said DSP.

8. The method of claim 5 , wherein said DSP comprises an array of colorless directionless contentionless CDC components coupled to respective phase lock loops that output to an on/off-keying de-mapping, said de-mapping coupled to a forward error correction followed by a client interface.