Data transmission over polymer optical fibers

Polymer optical fiber (POF) is a promising transmission medium for providing broadband telecommunication services within the customer's premises. POF offers several attractive features for data transmission such as broad bandwidth and low cost for in-house, access, and LAN applications. This article presents a review on optical transmission systems using POF and their enabling technologies. A summary is given of experimental data links with record capacity over record transmission distances. Standardization activities in POF technology and transmission are reported. To conclude, we discuss trends for further development and research. (C) 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.