Status and recent results from the POF-ALL EU project

We present an overview of the EU STREP project POF-ALL, aimed at developing new low-cost high-speed short reach optical transmission systems based on large-core (1 mm) Plastic Optical Fibers (POF). Best results include 100 Mbit/s transmission over 200 m of standard SI-PMMA-POF, and 1 Gbit/s transmission over 50 m of GI-PMMA- POF. It is generally shown that the ultimate POF capacity in terms of reach and/or bit rates is much higher than what it is typically perceived in the POF community. The project consortium proposes advanced modulation techniques applied to optics, such as multilevel PAM, QAM or even OFDM, or advanced digital equalization techniques. There seems to be a rationale for all these techniques in the medium term, due to the steady increase of performance and decrease of cost of digital electronics. Thus, moving a part of the complexity from the 'optical domain' to the 'electronic domain', or at least finding the best compromise between the two domains may become the most effective solutions in the near future. This is a trend that is also seen today in the long-haul GOF sector.