To decrease cost and consumption of future wireless infrastructures, radio-over fibre systems utilising 850 nm vertical cavity surface emitting lasers and standard single-mode fibre (SSMF) are deserving particular attention in replacing the typical use of graded-index multimode fibre (GI-MMF). In the present work, a characterisation of noise and non-linearities of these links is performed, followed by an estimation of their impact on the system dynamics and the quality of the received signal. This allows to show that very good and similar performances can be obtained through the utilisation of SSMF and GI-MMF for the transmission of five long-term evolution channels with 20 MHz bandwidth, confirming that the former, by the higher diffusion and lower cost per metre of the SSMF, can be put among the leading candidates for the realisation of fourth-generation (4G) and 5G wireless networks.