Past and Future Development of Radio-Over-Fiber

The radio-over-fiber (RoF) technology which was first introduced in the late eighties has evolved over time and is now considered as a possible solution for future wireless transport. The exponential growth in mobile user applications and their diverse requirements demand the future wireless and its transport network to be more intelligent, software-defined, and ubiquitous to provide immersive, high bandwidth, ultra-low latency, and hyper reliable communication. These evolutions mandate rethinking of the design and development of physical layer and upper layer of RoF technologies. This paper reviews the past and current developments of RoF technologies and summarizes the challenges that the technologies can potentially face in the future to support beyond 5G networks and their requirements.