Fiber-wireless (FiWi) access networks: Challenges and opportunities

Hybrid fiber-wireless (FiWi) access networks aim at combining the huge amount of available bandwidth of optical networks and the ubiquity and mobility of wireless access networks with the objective to reduce their cost and complexity. This article highlights key enabling optical as well as wireless technologies and explains their role in emerging FiWi networks. After briefly reviewing previous art, important challenges and imperatives for the design of future FiWi network architectures, protocols, and algorithms are identified and discussed in detail. © 2011 IEEE.