Remotely Pumped All-Optical Wavelength Conversion for WDM-PON-Based Access-Metro Convergence

Access-metro convergence networks (AMCN) have been proposed as a future optical communication network to realize flexible and dynamic bandwidth allocation. An AMCN requires transceivers with different wavelengths for the optical network units (ONUs). This causes an increase in production costs. Although an all-optical wavelength converter (AOWC) mitigates this issue, the AOWC increases the installation cost because it consists of many expensive optical devices. We propose the use of a remotely pumped AOWC (RP-AOWC) with an AMCN. The proposed technique can reduce the number of pump light sources in the AOWC. This paper demonstrates this reduction in the number of light sources and the feasibility of wavelength conversion using pump light propagation. We calculate the reduction in the number of pump sources and the number of transceiver types caused by the use of RP-AOWC and experiment with the wavelength conversion using pump light propagation.