Bit-interleaved sigma-delta modulation over fiber

2026-07-22

Network operators are struggling on how to release broadband mobile services in highly dense and hot-spot scenarios. The 5th generation of mobile networks is targeting per user downlink and uplink rates of 300 Mb/s and 50 Mb/s respectively. In ultra-dense environments such as stadiums, airports, shopping malls and tourist hot-spots, the aggregated bit rate becomes enormous. To make it more concrete, Belgium’s national football stadium (King Baudouin) is taken as example. The stadium can accommodate 50000 spectators. Even if an average bit-rate of only 50 Mb/s needs to be provided, an aggregated bit-rate of 2.5 Tb/s is required. Given the small area of a stadium (18 000 m2 seating area), this results in an astonishing capacity per area of 140 Tb/s/km2 or 140 Mb/s/m2. This is a 10-fold increase compared to area traffic capacity targeted in 5G and a 100-fold increase compared to the current 4G technologies. In order to make this 10-fold increase happen, the BI-SDMoF proposal (Bit-Interleaved Sigma-Delta Modulation over Fiber) builds on patent pending technologies currently developed in the ATTO Advanced ERC grant (“A new concept for ultra-high capacity wireless networks”). Whereas the ATTO project is using floor and robot integrated antenna’s with a target density of 100 Gb/s/m2 and targets a long term market potential, the BI-SDMoF PoC will focus on applying basic components from the ATTO project in a 5G fiber-fronthaul Centralized Radio Access Network (C-RAN) and Distributed Antenna System (DAS) context that is much closer to the market. The target density is 150 Mb/s/m2 and a distributed Massive MIMO scenario is envisaged. As a PoC demonstrator a low power, low cost 28 GHz RRH (Radio Resource Head) supporting two antenna streams with four 400 MBd channels each will be designed and integrated in a small scale DAS (4 RRHs) demonstrator. Each RRH will support 25.6 Gbps mobile traffic and the complete DAS system will be tested in a stadium environment (Ghelamco).

Belgium

2026-02-01