Passive Optical Network

CONTENTS
What is PON and Why it is used Elements of PON Different Types WDM PON and Beyond

Passive Optical Network

Passive optical network (PON) is a point-to multipoint, fiber to the premises network architecture in which passive optical splitters are used to enable a single optical fiber to serve multiple premises, typically 16-128. It reduces the amount of fiber and equipment required compared with point to point network. A passive optical network is a form of fiber-optic access network.

Elements of PON
PON consists of an optical line terminal (OLT) at the service provider's central office and a number of optical network units (ONUs) near end users. OLT and ONU Optical transceiver using different wavelengths to transmit and to receive. For management of the network, the OLT measures the power received from individual ONUs, allocates Ids to ONUs, discovers new ONUs added to the network. Downstream transmission OLT broadcasts data downstream to all ONUs in Network. ONU captures data destined for its address, discards all other data. Encryption is needed to ensure privacy Upstream transmission ONUs share bandwidth using Time Division Multiple Access OLT manages the ONU timeslots Ranging is performed to determine ONU-OLT propagation time Additional functionality Physical Layer Operation Administrations and Maintenance (OAM) Autodiscovery Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation

Different Types 1) ATM PON

ITU-T 983.1 standard is based on Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM). 1.3 m band and 1.55 m band wavelength multiplexing is used in transmission. Upward signal light from ONU to OLT uses the 1.3 m band wavelength and has a transfer rate of 155.52 Mbps. Downward signal light from OLT to ONU uses the 1.55m band and has a transfer rate of either 622.08 Mbps or 155.52 Mbps. The network that provides optical cable from OLT to multiple users (ONU) consists of an Optical Distribution Network (ODN). Optical branch circuits such as optical splitters are used in this network.

2) G PON
Next-generation ITU protocol is GPON and is designated ITU-T G.984. GPON allows both ATM cells and Ethernet frames to be transmitted on the same PON. The ATM & Ethernet frames are mapped into the GPON Encapsulation Method (GEM) frame in both the directions. Fragmentation and Reassembly. GPON provides varying rates of transmission in both the upstream and the downstream directions. Downstream direction - 2.488Gbps or 1.244Gbps. Upstream direction - 155Mbps or 622Mbps or 1.244Gbps. Wavelength used is 1310 nm in upstream & 1490 nm in downstream. The data traffic can comprise Ethernet frames, IP packets, IP-TV, VoIP and any other type, making the GEM frame transport capability attractive, efficient and simple

Downstream data packet

Downstream Traffic
Based on the bandwidth requirement of port, slots within the frames are allocated to individual ONUs. The upstream traffic is transferred in transmission containers (TCONTs).

The payload can carry one of the three types of information ; ATM payload DBA report, or GEM encapsulated traffic.

3) EPON
The IEEE has developed an Ethernet-based protocol referred to as EPON; and is designated 802.3. This standard uses a 1.25 Gbps data rate for both upstream and downstream. An OLT supports 16 ONUs at a range of 10 km. The transport mechanism for EPON is Ethernet. Downstream: EPON handles the physical broadcast of 802.3 frames. Broadcast frames are extracted by the logical link ID in the preamble. Upstream: The MPCP uses time slots containing multiple 802.3 frames. 64 bytes GATE/REPORT messages. There are no collisions and no packet fragmentation in this architecture.

Downstream transmission

Upstream transmission

WDM PON
Instead of using TDM for different ONUs we can use WDM. It consists of a shared feeder fiber between the CO and a remote node and dedicated distribution fibers, each connecting a separate subscriber to the remote node. This remote node acts as a wavelength demultiplexer in the downstream direction and as a wavelength multiplexer in the opposite upstream direction. Each subscriber is assigned two unique wavelengths, one for reception of downstream data and another one for transmission of upstream data. WDM PONs have been actively studied as a promising technology for next generation optical access networks. The benefits of the new wavelength dimension are Manifold as it i) increase network capacity, ii) improve network scalability by accommodating more end users i) separate services, and/or ii) separate service providers

The wavelength (de)multiplexer e.g., an athermal arrayed-waveguide grating (AWG) used requires replacement of existing power splitter of TDM PONs with an AWG. This upgrade path is not desirable, as it disrupts existing service subscribers. A more practical approach is to leave the existing power splitting PON infrastructure in place, whereby wavelength selection is done at each ONU by means of a band pass filter Modification of wavelength blocking filters for conventional TDM ONUs to ensure that future WDM ONUs using additional wavelengths can be installed on present GPON infrastructures.

For WDM EPON, it is important to consider WDM upgrade path of EPON that does not impose any particular WDM ONU architecture. Such upgrade not only allows the decisions to be dictated by economics, state-of-the-art transceiver manufacturing technology, and service provider preferences, but also provides future-proofness against arbitrary WDM ONU structures. WDM upgrade does not require any modifications of the existing power-splitting fiber infrastructure in order to guarantee backward compatibility with EPON and exploit the features of its underlying multipoint control protocol (MPCP) access protocol, e.g., discovery and registration of ONUs, as specified in IEEE 802.3ah.

Advance PON : Long Reach PON

Optical technology has ability to displace electronics and simplify the network by optically integrating access and metro networks, leading to so called long-reach PONs. Consolidating optical access and metro network tiers and thereby reducing the number of required optical-electrical-optical (OEO) conversions, LR PONs offer major cost savings and provide an increased splitting ratio compared with conventional PONs, at the expense of optical amplifiers required to compensate for splitting and propagation losses. LR PON deploys dense WDM (DWDM) to accommodate multiple power-splitting multistage LR TDM PONs, each operating at a different pair of upstream and downstream wavelength channels, on the same fiber infrastructure. Components used in this system are two erbium-doped fiber amplifiers and one AWG for (de)multiplexing upstream and downstream wavelengths, it is equipped with an array of 17 DFB lasers. Each DFB laser generates a different optical carrier that is modulated by the ONUs of the corresponding TDM PON. The hybrid DWDMTDM LR PON is able to have a total length of 100 km potentially supporting 17 TDM PONs, each with up to 256 customers, translating into a total of 4352 customers.

References
1) Frank Effenberger, Glen Kramer and Bernd Hesse, Passive Optical Networking Update, IEEE communication Magazine, March 2007 2) Martin Maier, WDM Passive Optical Networks and Beyond, Journal Optical Communication Network , September 2009 3) G. Talli and P. D. Townsend, Hybrid DWDM-TDM long reach PON for next generation optical acess, Journal Lightwave Technology, November 2004 4) Cedric Lam, Passive Optical Network: Principles and Practice 5) www.tcil-india.com