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PON Delivers Optical Access
to the Masses
PON is emerging as an attractive platform for meeting today's
service provider requirements. It offers low-cost, flexibility, scalability,
and an easily managed access and distribution network solution. Several
market drivers make PON the technology of choice over competing technologies.
And its deployment by early adopters, worldwide,
is garnering the attention of incumbent carriers, including the regional
PON
101
By industry definition, PON architectures basically consist
of only passive elements — there are no active electronics placed
in the outside plant for connecting homes and businesses to the network.
This provides a low-cost solution for a variety of services, both
broadband and narrowband. PONs can carry multiple services, including
data, voice, and video, over a single fiber cable. In a PON system, a single fiber connects multiple
customers to a single transceiver at the central office. The single
fiber is split, using a passive optical splitter, to serve up to 32
customers. Not only does PON reduce the amount of fiber required,
but a single transceiver serves multiple customers instead of requiring
one per customer. Also, because all active electronics are eliminated from the
outside plant, there is no requirement for power, telecom huts, air
conditioning, and large numbers of technicians to maintain the network. Driving
PON forward
PON is being driven by several factors, including the phenomenal
growth of broadband demand. A few years ago, a 5% penetration rate
for broadband service was exciting. However, in some parts of the
world today, penetration has reached 40% and more — and this
trend is expected to continue as consumer applications demand higher
and higher bandwidth. Another PON driver is the sharp decline of cost of fiber deployment
in the access space over the last ten years. In the mid-1990s, the
capital cost for fiber access was around $7500 per subscriber. That cost has fallen to less than $2000 today and is expected to drop
to less than $1000 per subscriber in the near future. With
this dramatic decrease in capital cost for fiber access, a huge barrier
for fiber-to-the-user (FTTU) has been virtually eliminated. The high degree of integration and the passive nature of the
outside plant greatly simplify network operations. Service provisioning
can be largely automated because the network is designed to support
a spectrum of services from day one. Services can be initiated and
terminated by customers, saving labor costs that can be used for other
customer care, thereby improving customer loyalty. In addition, since
multiple services are provided via a single network, customer care
can be more effective and offer additional opportunities for up-selling.
As a side benefit, this decreases customer churn, further cutting
back on marketing costs for individual services and order generation. PONs Around the World
New technology may be interesting and "sexy," but
unless customers need and accept it, it's
of little value. PON has already proven itself successful in the market.
In the Asia-Pacific region alone, PON deployment has grown very rapidly
— somewhere around 650,000 subscribers already connected. In
the All
That Glitters is not Always Gold
Unfortunately, not all PONs are created
equal. While the Broadband PON (BPON) standards are mature and virtually
all the PON deployments to date have been BPONs,
not all PONs are standards compliant and
reliable for mass deployment. In addition, newer PON standards such
as Gigabit PON (GPON) and Ethernet PON (EPON) are in the process of
standardization. Gigabit PON is designed as an extension of BPON and
offers the highest efficiency for IP services and up to 2.5 Gb/s capacity. EPON offers up to 1.2 Gb/s capacity and is optimized
for ultra-high speed Internet access. As mass deployment of BPON continues
and these other standards mature, there is sure to be a PON solution
for any market needs. PON Testing issues and methods A
PON has specific fiber optic testing concerns for the following reasons:
Kingfisher Bi-directional, auto test instruments are designed for accurate,
reliable and repeatable PON, CWDM, DWDM, LAN, FTTH testing applications. Typical Limitations of a Source and Meter for PON Testing… This approach
can accurately measure the end to end loss using the traditional non-ORL
bi-directional measurement procedure…
However it
is too slow and error prone, and cannot measure ORL, which is critical
for bi-directional operation. Therefore the Kingfisher International Bi-Directional ORL Testers and Kingfisher
International Test Software (KITS™) are the field
tester’s instrument’s of choice… |
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