Communications with Guaranteed Low Latency and Bandwidth using Frequency Referenced Multiplexing

Abstract The rise of timing-critical applications such as virtual reality and connected car fleets, combined with the rapid growth of the number of user devices, creates new challenges for the latency and reliability of user-cloud data communications. Currently user-cloud communications rely on time-scheduled data frames through tree-topology fibre networks, incapable of assuring guaranteed connections with low or stable latency, which is necessary for, e.g. remote surgeries and safe operations of self-driven cars. Besides, their scalability to a larger user count is limited. Here we show that clock and optical frequency synchronisation, enabled by burgeoning frequency comb and signal processing techniques, can provide each user with dedicated optical bandwidth to enable scalable user-cloud communications that guarantee simultaneously high per-user data rate and low latency. Our approach provides accurate clock and optical frequency synchronisation over deployed optical fibre links, which will be beneficial for many applications including accurate navigation, quantum communications, and astronomy.