Information Literacy Course-III Passive Optical Network (PON)

Rough Draft BM10502 K.Anandakumar

Abstract Providing the triple play services of voice, video, and high-speed data access is an important way for carriers to increase their revenue and compete with other access providers such as the CATV operators. For telephone network providers and CATV providers, the most flexible and futureproof medium for providing triple play services is fiber, with its virtually unlimited bandwidth availability. Since providing a direct optical connection between the central office (CO) and each subscriber is cost prohibitive, most optical access systems share a passive optical network (PON) among multiple subscribers. PON decreases the real estate of the central office, the labour cost involved in fiber access deployment, and length of fiber plant to maintain. This paper provides some background on fiber-based access technologies and a tutorial overview of the most popular very highspeed PON access network. Introduction The PON is an access network based on Optical Fiber. It is designed to provide virtually unlimited bandwidth to the subscriber. A passive Optical network is a single, shared optical fiber that uses a passive optical splitter to divide the signal towards individual subscribers. PON is called passive because other than at the central office there are no active elements within the access network. A PON enables a service provider to deliver a true triple play offering of voice, video and data, an important component of the data offering can be IPTV. In this paper Im going to describe about the following Elements of PON network, Network Elements Fiber to Premise Architecture of PON Types of PON Current status Network Elements A PON consists of a central office node, called an optical line terminal (OLT), one or more user nodes, called optical network units (ONUs) or optical network terminals (ONTs), and the fibers and splitters between them, called the optical distribution network (ODN). ONT is an ITU-T term to describe a special, single-user case of an ONU. In Multiple Tenant Units, the ONU may be bridged to a customer premise device within the individual dwelling unit using technologies such as Ethernet over twisted pair. An ONU is a device that terminates the PON and presents customer service interfaces to the user. Some ONUs implements a separate subscriber unit to provide services such as telephony, Ethernet data, or video. Fiber to Premises Passive optical networks do not use electrically powered components to split the signal. Instead, the signal is distributed using beam splitters. Each splitter typically splits the signal from a single fiber into 16, 32, or 64 fibers, depending on the manufacturer, and several splitters can be aggregated in a single cabinet. A beam splitter cannot provide any switching or buffering capabilities; the resulting connection is called a point-to-multipoint link. For such a connection, the optical network terminals on the customer's end must perform some special functions which would not otherwise be required. For example, due to the absence of switching capabilities, each signal leaving the central office must be broadcast to all users served by that splitter (including to those for whom the signal is not intended). It is therefore up to the optical network terminal to filter out any signals intended for other customers. In addition, since beam splitters cannot perform buffering, each individual optical network terminal must be coordinated in a multiplexing scheme to prevent signals leaving the customer from colliding at the intersection. Two types of multiplexing are possible for achieving this: wavelength-division multiplexing and time-division multiplexing. With wavelength-division multiplexing, each customer transmits their signal using a unique wavelength. With time-division multiplexing (TDM), the customers "take turns" transmitting information. TDM equipment has been on the market longest; WDM-PON equipment became available in 2005.

PON application
Advantages and disadvantages of PON

Architecture The elements of a PON are

1. Optical Line Terminal(OLT) 2. Passive Optical Splitter 3. Optical Network Unit (ONU)

Fig: PON Configuration The communication path from the OLT to the ONU is referred to as downstream and reverse path as upstream. The downstream and upstream signals are carried over the same fibre.

Fig: PON Architecture The Optical Line Terminal is the main element of the network and is usually placed in the Local Exchange. It is a network element with PON line card, basically a aggregation switch. It works as an interface between core network and PON network. Optical Splitter is a passive device with single input and multiple output. Optical power at input is split evenly between outputs. Not only signal travels from input to the outputs, signal can also travel from the output to the input. Splitters can be placed anywhere in between CO and Subscriber premises. It is used to connect an optical port of OLT with multiple subscribers. Optical Network units(ONUs) serve as an interface to the network and are deployed at customer premises. It provides several interfaces for accessing triple play services and in the upper side it connects with the OLT via optical splitter. Although PONs can exist in three basic configuration (tree, bus and ring), the tree topology is favoured due to smaller variation in the signal power from different end station. PON uses 1490 nm for the downstream wavelength and 1310 nm for the upstream wavelength. Signals are inserted or extracted from the fibre using a coarse wavelength division multiplexer (CWDM) filter at the CO and subscriber premises. Fig: PON Downstream In the downstream direction the signal sent by the OLT arrives at the splitters input and later the same signal reaches every ONU.

Fig: PON Upstream

In the other direction, from ONUs to the OLT, the signals from different ONUs arrive at inputs of the splitter. Although the signals cannot reach different ONUs, as they traverse through the splitter they get mixed with each other and the superposition of all signals is received at the OLT. Hence in the upstream direction the TDMA method is used to avoid the interference of signals from different ONUs. PON Types There are three standards with respect to PONs: (i) BPON (ii) EPON (iii) GPON. (i) BPON: The Broadband passive optical network (BPON) was the first attempt towards a PON standard. It is governed by the ITU-T and is designated as ITU-T G.983. It established the general requirements for PON protocols. BPON use Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) as the underlying transport mechanism to carry used data. BPON did not gain much popularity due to lack of bandwidth and widespread use of Ethernet protocol. (ii) EPON: The Ethernet Passive Optical Network (EPON/GE-PON) is governed by IEEE and is designated as IEEE 802.3ah. EPON is based on Ethernet, unlike other PON technologies which are based on ATM. It provides simple, easy-tomanage connectivity to Ethernet-based IP equipment both at the customer premises and at the central office. It is well suited to carry packetized traffic as well as time-sensitive voice and video traffic. It offers 1.25Gbps data rate for both upstream and downstream. EPON supports 1:16 split ratio i.e. 16 ONUs at a range of 20 km can be connected with a single port of OLT. (iii) GPON: The most recent PON standard is the ITU-T G.984 GPON(Gigabit PON) standard, which offers 2.488 Gbps bandwidth and direct support of both TDM(POTs & E1) and Ethernet traffic at the edge of the network with possible triple play voice, data and video services on the same PON. GPON can support ONUs that are located as far as 30 Km from the OLT. GPON offer higher split ratio of 1: 32/64/128 which results in an OLT reduction by more than a factor of 2 over EPON. WDM PON: wavelength Division Multiplexing Passive Optical Network is the next generation in development of access networks. Ultimately, they can offer the largest bandwidth at the lowest cost. In principle, the architecture of WDM PON is similar to the architecture of the PON. The main difference is that multiple wavelengths operate on

single fibre and ONUs operates on different wavelengths. Multiple wavelengths on single fibre enable either more bandwidth per each ONU or more ONUs per each distribution fibre. Current Status Both APON/BPON and EPON/GEPON have been deployed widely, but most networks designed in 2008 use GPON or GEPON. GPON has fewer than 2 million installed ports. GEPON has approximately 30 million deployed ports. For TDM-PON, a passive power splitter is used as the remote terminal. Each ONUs (Optical network units) signals are multiplexed in the time domain. ONUs see their own data through the address labels embedded in the signal. PON Applications PON enable users with the following services: Digital Entertainment: IPTV Video on Demand Video Telephony Audio on Demand Gaming, etc.

Broadband Data services: High Speed Internet access bandwidth 256 kbps-100 Mbps VoIP ( Voice Over IP)Telephony with

Advantages and disadvantages of PON

An active optical system uses electrically powered switching equipment, such as a router or a switch aggregator, to manage signal distribution and direct signals to specific customers. This switch opens and closes in various ways to direct the incoming and outgoing signals to the proper place. In such a system, a customer may have a dedicated fiber running to his or her house. A passive optical network, on the other hand, does not include electrically powered switching equipment and instead uses optical splitters to separate and collect optical signals as they move through the network. A passive optical network shares fiber optic strands for portions of the network. Powered equipment is required only at the source and receiving ends of the signal. In some cases, FTTH systems may combine elements of both passive and active architectures to form a hybrid system. Passive optical networks, or PONs, have some distinct advantages. They're efficient, in that each fiber optic strand can serve up to 32 users. PONs have a low building cost relative to active optical networks along with lower maintenance costs. Because there are few moving or electrical parts, there's simply less that can go wrong in a PON. Passive optical networks also have some disadvantages. They have less range than an active optical network, meaning subscribers must be geographically closer to the central source of the data. PONs also make it difficult to isolate a failure when they occur. Also, because the bandwidth in a PON is not dedicated to individual subscribers, data transmission speed may slow down during peak usage times in an effect known as latency. Latency quickly degrades services such as audio and video, which need a smooth rate to maintain quality. Active optical networks offer certain advantages, as well. Their reliance on Ethernet technology makes interoperability among vendors easy. Subscribers can select hardware that delivers an appropriate data transmission rate and scale up as their needs increase without having to restructure the network. Active optical networks, however, also have their weaknesses. They require at least one switch aggregator for every 48 subscribers. Because it requires power, an active optical network inherently is less reliable than a passive optical network. Conclusion:

Bandwidth demand for growth of existing services and introduction of new services will continue to increase day by day. Existing access method will not be able to meet the bandwidth requirement in near future. PON can offer sufficient bandwidth for providing true triple play services of voice, video and data. Among different PON technologies, GPON offers best solution that will address the access bandwidth growth in the foreseeable future. References

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