University

PON
Passive Optical Networking

Technology overview

Alcatel-Lucent University Antwerp Alcatel-Lucent University Antwerp

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Objectives

At the end of the course, youll be able to

understand how fibers do work, and explain which components are
used in an optical relay system
internal refraction, transmitter, amplifier, receiver, splitter,
explain the basic properties of a passive optical network
describe the functions of the components present in a PON based
network
correctly use basic PON terminology

We will not cover

the PON variant standardised by IEEE
how PON is implemented

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Table of contents

Optical fiber fundamentals. . . . p. 4

PON standardisation . . . . . p. 36
GPON fundamentals . . . . . p. 38
PON comparison . . . . . . p. 65

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 University

Optical fiber fundamentals

Alcatel-Lucent University Antwerp 4

Advantages of fiber

Extremely high bandwidth

Smaller-diameter, lighter-weight cables
Lack of crosstalk between parallel fibers
Immunity to inductive interference
High-quality transmission
Low installation and operating costs

5
Optical fiber structure

core
thin glass center of the fiber where the light travels
cladding
outer optical material surrounding the core that reflects the light
back into the core
coating
plastic coating that protects the fiber from damage and moisture

6
Optical fiber classification

glass
glass core glass cladding
lowest attenuation
most widely used
plastic
plastic core plastic cladding
highest attenuation
pioneered for use in automotive industry
plastic-clad silica
glass core plastic cladding
intermediate attenuation

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Optical fiber types

G.651 MMF Multi-mode fiber

large(r) core: 50-62.5 microns in diameter
transmit infrared light (wavelength = 850 to 1,300 nm)
light-emitting diodes

G.652 SMF Single mode fiber

small core: 8-10 microns in diameter
transmit laser light (wavelength = 1,200 to 1,600 nm)
laser diodes

245 um 125 um 8 62.5 um

Cladding Coating
Core

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Reflection and refraction

incident ray reflected ray

a1 ac
n1

n2 a2 a2

refracted ray

n1.sin(a1) = n2.sin(a2) n1.sin(ac) = n2.sin(90)

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Total internal reflection

Concept
light travels through the core constantly bouncing from the
cladding
Distance
a light wave can travel great distances because the cladding does
not absorb light from the core
Signal degradation
mostly due to impurities in the glass

cladding

acceptance
cone
core

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Scattering

Rayleigh scattering

scattering redirects light out of the core to the cladding

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Absorption

infrared absorption

absorption removes signal energy in the interaction

between the propagating light (photons) and
molecules in the core

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 Attenuation as function of wavelength

0,85 1,30 1,55

2.0 band band band
1.8
1.6
Attenuation (dB/Km)

1.4
1.2
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
0.8 0.9 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8
Wavelength (microns)

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Optical spectral bands

Original Extended Short Conventional Long Ultralong

band band band band band band

O-band E-band S-band C-band L-band U-band

1260 1360 1460 1530 1565 1625 1675

wavelength (nm)

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Fiber optic relay system

Optical transmitter
produces and encodes the light signal
Optical amplifier
may be necessary to boost the light signal (for long distances)
Optical receiver
receives and decodes the light signal
Optical fiber
conducts the light signals over a distance

Tx Amplifie Rx
r
Electrical Optical Optical Electrical

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Optical transmitter

Function:
Electrical to Optical convertor (E/O) Tx
Types:
Light Emitting Diode - LED
Laser Diode LD
Comparison:

Item LED LD
Data rate Low High

Mode Multimode Multimode or single mode

Distance Short Long
Temperature Minor Substantial
sensivity
Cost Low cost Expensive

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Optical amplifier

Definition:
an optical fiber with a doped coating Amplifier

How it works:
laser pump population inversion
most atoms are in excited state rather then in ground state
controlled, stimulated emission
when perturbed by a photon, matter loses energy resulting in the
creation of another photon
second photon is created with the same phase, frequency,
polarization, and direction of travel as the original,
the perturbing photon is not destroyed in the process:
photon multiplication
Element
erbium rare, so expensive
erbium doped fiber amplifier - EDFA

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Optical receiver

Function:
Rx
Optical to Electrical conversion (O/E)
Type:
APD Avalanche Photo Diode
PIN Positive Intrinsic Negative photodiode
How it works:
gives an electrical pulse when struck by light
Errors:
thermal noise is an issue: a pulse of light must carry enough
energy to be detected
by making pulses powerful enough, the error rate can be made
arbitrarily small

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Transceiver

Definition:
a transmitter and a receiver
in a single housing
Practical implementation:
transceivers typically come as SFP
Small-Form-factor Pluggable unit

Tx

Rx

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Lightwave modulation

digital
light intensity does change in an on/off fashion
NRZ - non return to zero
0 - weak optical signal
1 - strong optical signal

analog
light intensity changes continuously

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Joining fibers Fiber alignment

bad alignment good alignment

cores are not centered cores are centered
big power loss small power loss

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Joining fibers Fiber orientation

PC physical contact APC angular physical contact

lots of back reflection some back reflection
(big) return loss (small) return loss

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Joining fibers Connectors

properties
good alignment/correct orientation
present at the termination point of the fiber
always introduce some loss

connector types
amount of mating cycles
LC, FC, SC,

color code
APC green
PC blue

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Joining fibers Splices

mechanical splicing
aligning and orienting the fibers,
then clamp the fibers in place

fusion splicing
aligning and orienting the fibers,
then fuse (melt) the fibers
using an electric arc

typical case used to enclose

fiber optic splices in an
outside plant environment

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Optical power splitters

optical splitters
typically divide an optical signal
from a single input
into multiple (e.g. two) output signals
and generally provide
a small optical loss
to the signal passed through it

3 dB
insertion loss

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Optical wavelength splitters

wavelength division multiplexing

enables the combining of
multiple wavelenghts (e.g. two)
into one single fiber
depending on the design, an optical wavelength splitter
typically provides
a small to medium loss
to the signals passed through it

0.3 dB loss
insertion loss
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Optical networking and network topology

Point to Point
LE + Hi capacity
- High fiber plant cost because of point to point
configuration of fiber pairs

Active Star
+ High capacity
LE
- High operations and maintenance cost
- High cost of outside plant electronics

Passive Star
LE
+ High capacity
+ Standardized
+ Passive and flexible cable plant
+ Low operations cost
+ All services over one fiber
+ Low fiber plant cost

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PON fiber sections

primary secondary
CO flexibility flexibility
point point CP

feeder section drop section

distribution section

centralised splitter scenario

splitters in primary fexibility point only
distributed splitter scenario
splitters in both primary and secondary flexibility point

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Centralised splitters

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Distributed splitters

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PON benefits

purely passive fiber plant

low maintenance costs and high reliability
shares feeder fiber over multiple users
less fibers needed, less ports needed at CO
fiber is virtually not limiting the bandwidth
much higher bandwidth x distance than copper networks
fibers bandwidth can be further exploited by WDM or
equipment upgrade
installed fiber infrastructure is future-proof
PON offers bundled services over a single fiber
triple play voice / data / video

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PON deployment scenarios FTTx

FTTEx FTTCab FTTC FTTH/B

ONU
ADSL ( < 6 KM ) XNT
< 8 Mbit/s
Central Office
ATM NETWORK ONU
OLT
ADSL/VDSL ( < 1 KM ) XNT
< 26 Mbit/s
LL Network
ONU
VDSL ( < 300 M )
OTHER
XNT
< 52 Mbit/s
POTS/ISDN

ONT

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 University

PON standardisation

Alcatel-Lucent University Antwerp 33

ITU-T standards for GPON

G.984.1 GPON service requirements

specifies line rate configurations and service capabilities
G.984.2 GPON physical medium
specifies transceiver characteristics
per line rate and per ODN class
including burst overhead for each upstream line rate
G.984.3 GPON transmission convergence
specifies transmission convergence protocol, physical layer OAM,
ranging mechanism
G.984.4 GPON ONT management channel interface
based on OMCI for BPON, taking GPONs packet mode into
account

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 University

GPON fundamentals

Alcatel-Lucent University Antwerp 35

PON properties

PON Passive Optical Network

PON
passive components
star topology
lambdas
1490nm downstream data
1310nm upstream data
1550nm downstream (optional)
ranging distance
60 km max distance
20 km differential distance
split-ratio
64 subscribers (or even more)

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Optical power budget

distance depends on loss in different components:

loss in splitters
cascaded splitter can be used
e.g. 1:4 splitter followed by 1:8 splitter or vice versa
so a one-step 1:32 splitter can be used
loss in WDM coupler
loss per km fiber PON
loss in connectors

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Optical power budget Data

power budget has its impact on

PON
reach
split ratio
trade-off / example
no split 1 user @ 52,5 km
1:2 2 users @ 45 km
1:4 4 users @ 37.5 km

1:32 32 users @ 15 km
1:64 64 users @ 7.5 km
high quality fiber with lower attenuation
gives better distances

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Optical power budget Analog video

maximum practical level ~16 dBm (long spans)

minimum receive level for 48 dB C/N ~-5 dBm
at 1550 nm, fiber exhibits loss of about 0.25 dB/km, so maximum
distance without amp. is ~80 km
each two-way split results in a loss of nominally ~3.5 dB of level,
assume 4 dB worst case.
Split Nom. Avail. Nom.
splitting fiber loss Distance
loss (dB) (dB) (km)
Notes: based on nominal fiber and
splitter loss, not worst case. 4 7 11 44
Practical distances are less. 8 10.5 7.5 30
Includes 2 dB for connectorization
loss, 1550 nm externally modulated 16 14 4 16
transmitter
32 17.5 2.5 10
64 21 -1 0

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PON lambdas

voice and data over a single fiber

two wavelengths in opposite directions
video
one wavelength in downstream direction

Data path
Splitters
1490 nm X Mb/s

1310 nm Y Mb/s

1550 nm Video path

Line rate flexibility

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CTS Common Technical Specifications

narrow down on degrees of freedom offered by the standards

line rate
downstream: 2.488 Gb/s
PON
upstream: 1.244 Gb/s

wavelengths
downstream data: 1490 nm
upstream data: 1310 nm GPON

downstream video: 1550 nm

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GPON protocol layers and formats

GEM GPON Encapsulation Method

Ethernet + TDM
ATM Asynchronous Transfer Mode

AAL2 + Ethernet + TDM POTS/VF

VG

ONT
OLT optical (TDM/TDMA)

BAS
AAL5 + Ethernet Ethernet

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OMCI ONT Management Control Interface

a method to manage ONTs from the OLT

this includes configuration, fault and performance management
each ONT and the OLT has its own OMCI channel
bandwidth is allocated at PON creation time
protocol?
the OMCI protocol

PON

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Downstream operation

TDM Time Division Multiplexing

continuous mode operation
traffic in the downstream is sent to/received by every ONU
issue: data confidentiality
AES Advanced Encryption Standard
used for link layer encryption
Rx

Tx
Rx
t

OLT
Rx
ONU
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Upstream operation

TDMA Time Division Multiple Access

burst mode operation
the OLT controls which ONU gets access to the upstream at a
particular moment in time
issues: potential collision
access granting
distance ranging
Tx

Rx
t Tx

OLT ONU
Tx

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Distance ranging Why?

20 km

20 km

15 km

deliberately putting equalization delay in

for the purpose of avoiding collisions
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Distance ranging Measurement?

deliberately putting equalization delay in

for the purpose of avoiding collisions

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GPON frame format

ATM-segment (option) GEM-segment

downstream frame 125 us

ONU1 ONU2 ONU3 ONU4 ONU5

upstream frame 125 us

PCB ATM-cell GEM-packet

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GPON frame format Downstream

ATM-segment (option) GEM-segment

Physical Control Block

Psynch Ident PLOAMd BIP PLend PLend US BW Map

4 bytes 4 bytes 13 bytes 4 bytes 4 bytes N*8 bytes

1 byte

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GPON frame format Downstream (cont.)

Physical Control Block

N*8 bytes

Psynch Ident PLOAMd BIP PLend PLend US BW Map

AllocID Flag SStart SStop CRC AllocID CRC

12 bits 12 bits 2 bytes 2 bytes 1 byte

Entry for ONT#1 Entry for ONT#N

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GPON frame format Downstream (cont.)

3 entries

US BW Map

ONT1 slot 75 slot 240 ONT2 slot 280 slot 400 ONT3 slot 430 slot 550

AllocID Start Stop AllocID Start Stop AllocID Start Stop

upstream packet timing

guard time guard time

slot times: 75 240 280 400 430 550 time

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GPON frame format Upstream

ONU1 ONU2 ONU3 ONU4 ONU5

Header Payload

PLOu PLOAMu PLSu DBRu

Physical Physical Power Dynamic

layer layer leveling bandwidth
overhead OAM sequence report

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GEM encapsulation

GEM = GPON Encapsulation Method

TDM

GEM header

payload
PLI PortID PTI CRC payload
L bytes

12 bits 12 bits 3 bits 13 bits L bytes

Type/
MACDA MACSA Ethernet Payload FCS
Length

GEM allows for

point-to-point emulation
payload fragmentation (efficiency)
GEM allows native TDM transport
E1/T1, E3/T3 raw format

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Continuous mode operation

downstream frame

Tx Rx

continuous mode Tx continuous mode Rx

downstream theres always a signal

even when theres no user data to pass through
except when the laser is administratively turned of

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Burst mode operation

upstream frame

Rx Tx

burst mode Rx burst mode Tx

upstream theres only a signal when an ONT needs to send

when no ONT has info to send, theres no light on the fiber at all
between 2 consecutive bursts, a guard time is needed: 26 ns

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GPON novelties @ TC layer

fixed 125 s framing

enables easily transport of isochronous TDM services
encryption in DS
AES counter mode
double layer 2 support
native ATM cell based
GEM packet based
addressing capability
128 ONTs
maximum distance
OLT-ONT distance = 60 km
ONT-ONT distance = 20 km

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 University

PON comparison

Alcatel-Lucent University Antwerp 57

Summary + comparison chart

GPON EPON
ITU-T G.984 IEEE 802.1ah
Data rate (Mbps) Down: Down:
2488, 1244 Mbps 1250 Mpbs
Up: Up:
2488,1244, 622, 155 1250 Mbps
Mbps
Split ratio 1:64 (1:128 planned) 1:32
Efficiency (Ethernet mix) 92% 49%(upstream)
72%(downstream)
Video Overlay Yes Yes
Standards G.984.x 802.3
Span 60km max, 20km 10km today, 20km
differential planned

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 www.alcatel-lucent.com

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