University

PON
Passive Optical Networking

Technology overview

Alcatel-Lucent University Alcatel-Lucent University 1Antwer

Objectives

At the end of the course, you’ll 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 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

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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

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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 µ 1,30 µ 1,55 µ

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

 lots of back reflection contact
 (big) return loss  some back reflection
 (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
 fiber’s 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 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 35
PON properties

 PON – Passive Optical Network

 passive components PON
 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 it’s impact on

 reach PON
 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.
splittin fiber Distanc
g loss loss e (km)
Notes: based on nominal fiber and (dB) (dB)
splitter loss, not worst case.
Practical distances are less. 4 7 11 44
Includes 2 dB for connectorization
loss, 1550 nm externally modulated 8 10.5 7.5 30
transmitter 16 14 4 16
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 GPON
 upstream data: 1310 nm
 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 it’s 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 – there’s always a signal

 even when there’s 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 – there’s only a signal when an ONT needs to send

 when no ONT has info to send, there’s 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 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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