A coherent optical CDMA network employing Gold sequences for the encoding operation is analysed, and its performance is evaluated in the presence of shot noise and employing the exact distribution for the interfering components. Spreading and despreading are performed directly in the optical domain by means of a lithium niobate Mach-Zehnder phase modulator. BPSK and OOK modulation formats are considered. The results obtained show that the system can be profitably employed without requiring synchronisation between the stations