Patent ID: 8897648

Claim:
A method for network communication using a plurality of base stations and an optical backhaul network, the method comprising: generating an optical double sideband (ODSB) optical orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) signal on an optical wavelength, with the ODSB optical OFDMA signal being composed of a plurality of OFDMA subcarriers; modulating each of the plurality of OFDMA subcarriers using multi-level modulation; propagating each of the plurality of OFDMA subcarriers to different base stations using a single optical wavelength over a passive optical network (PON) using a passive optical splitter; delivering the ODSB optical OFDMA signal to a plurality of different base stations using a passive optical splitter; extracting traffic for each of the plurality of base stations in an electronic-domain using OFDMA subcarrier de-multiplexing, wherein the extracted traffic is remodulated in a wireless signal format; transmitting a wireless signal using antennas at each of the plurality of base stations; and recovering and processing the wireless signal from the plurality of base stations.