Chapter 0 Performance Assessment of UWB-Over-Fiber and Applications João M.B. Oliveira, Luís M. Pessoa, Diogo Coelho, Henrique M. Salgado and Jorge C.S. Castro Additional information is available at the end of the chapter http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/48748 1. Introduction Since 2002, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) authorized the use of ultra-wideband (UWB) signal transmissions for unlicensed use, in the range from 3.1 to 10.6 GHz, leading to a revived interest in research activities and to new opportunities for companies to explore and develop new broadband indoor and outdoor applications [1]. Moreover, UWB is seen as a promising technology for short range high speed wireless networks. UWB signals are characterized by their huge bandwidth occupancy, high data rates, and very weak power density (-41.3dBm/MHz), which gives them a noise-like signal characteristic, facilitating both interference mitigation and very low device power consumption. On the other hand, its very low intensity and high data rates limit the coverage to a few meters distance. Yet, by using radio-over-fiber (RoF) as a signal transportation technique, it is possible to deliver UWB signals over a fiber based network. The radio-over-fiber (RoF) concept involves the transmission of RF signals by an optical fiber between a control station (CS) and a number of base stations (BSs). In the base stations, the RF signal is transmitted to end users by a wireless link. Integration of both optical and wireless broadband infrastructures into the same backhaul network leads to a significant simplification and cost reduction of BSs since all routing, switching and processing are shifted to the CS. This centralization of signal processing functions enables equipment sharing, dynamic allocation of resources, and simplified system operation and maintenance. The concept of RoF is shown in Figure 1 in an in-building network context. RoF systems are (ideally) transparent to all signals transmitted in the optical fiber. It has been experimentally shown that RoF networks are well suited to simultaneously transport several wireless standards like wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA), IEEE 802.11 wireless local area network (WLAN) [2], global system for mobile communications ©2012 Oliveira et al., licensee InTech. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0),which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Chapter 15