OPTICAL ACCESS NETWORK

Dilip Kumar Kothari

4/30/2021
 Outline
2

 Introduction and History

 Classification of Access Network
 PON Architecture
 Ranging
 Bandwidth Allocation
 Types of PON
 Conclusion
 Access Networks
3

 Traditionally called last-mile networks as they comprise the

last segment connection from service providers’ central
office (CO) to end users
 Also called first-mile networks in recent years as they are
the first segment of the broader network seen by users of
telecommunication services.
 Example of access networks - twisted copper pairs
connecting to each individual household (also called local
loops) and residential coaxial cable drops from community
antenna TV (CATV) service providers
 Wi-Max is another type of access technology which uses
radio waves for last-mile connectivity

4/30/2021
 Optical Access Networks
4

 Traditionally, optical fibers have been widely used

in backbone networks because of their huge
available bandwidth and very low loss.

 Although fiber has also been touted as the next-

generation access technology for a long time, it is
not until the beginning of this century that fiber has
finally seen its growing commercial importance as
the technology of last-mile connection

4/30/2021
 Access Network
5

 Access Network is part of telecommunication network

which connects subscriber to their immediate service
provider.

4/30/2021
 fiber-in-the loop (FITL) systems
6

 Local loops using optical fiber for access connections

are called fiber-in-the loop (FITL) systems
 Optical fiber has the advantage of high bandwidth,
low loss, and low noise.
 Compared to the coaxial cable plant, which usually
requires many cascaded RF amplifiers, fiber plants
are in general much cleaner and require very little
maintenance

4/30/2021
 fiber-to-the-x (FTTx) system
7

 Fiber access systems are also referred to as fiber-to-

the-x (FTTx) system, where ‘‘x’’ can be ‘‘home,’’ ‘‘curb,’’
‘‘premises,’’ ‘‘neighborhood,’’ etc., depending on how
deep in the field fiber is deployed or how close it is to
the user
 In a fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) system, fiber is connected
all the way from the service provider to household users
 In an FTTC system, fiber is connected to the curb of a
community where the optical signal is converted into the
electrical domain and distributed to end users through
twisted pairs. Therefore, an FTTC system can also be
regarded as a hybrid fiber twisted pair system 4/30/2021
 PON Architecture - History
8

 In reality, fiber access systems can be point-to-point (P2P) or

P2MP
 Moreover, they can use an active remote distribution node
such as an Ethernet switch or a simple passive splitter as the
remote distribution node used in PS-PONs
 Although FITL was in trial for a long time since its proposal,
the high cost of fiber-optic components and lack of killer
applications for the high bandwidth offered by optical
fibers have been barriers to its real applications
 The PON architecture was proposed as a way to share the
large fiber bandwidth among many users through a passive
splitter, and hence improve the per user cost of FITL

4/30/2021
 PON History
9

 PON standardization work began in the 1990s when

carriers anticipated fast growth in bandwidth demands
 In 1995, the full service access network (FSAN)
consortium was formed by seven global tele-
communication operators including British Telecom, NTT,
and Bell South to standardize common requirements
and services for a passive optical access network
system
 One of the goals of FSAN was to create the economy
of scale and lower the cost of fiber-optic access systems
by promoting common standards
4/30/2021
 PON History
10

 FSAN recommendations were later adopted by the International

Telecommunication Union (ITU) as the ITU-T G.983 BPON (i.e.
broadband PON) standards
 Later Ethernet emerged as the dominating framing technology for
packetized IP data transmission. In March 2001, the IEEE 802.3
standard group started the 802.3ah Ethernet in the First Mile (EFM)
project.
 One of the charters of the 802.3ah work group was to standardize
the transport of Ethernet frames on P2MP PONs or EPON. The
IEEE802.3ah Standard was ratified in June 2004
 At the same time that EPON was developed by IEEE, the ITU-T Study
Group 15 (SG15) was also working on the next-generation PON
called Gigabit capable PON (G-PON). G-PON specifications are
captured in the G.984 series recommendations

4/30/2021
11

 Wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) increases system capacity by

transmitting multiple wavelengths on a single fiber
 Coarse WDM techniques have already been applied in PON systems to
separate upstream and downstream signals, and provide analog video
overlay
 An important advantage of the optical fiber is its virtually unlimited
bandwidth from an access viewpoint
 This gives rise to the idea of WDM-PON.
 In a WDM-PON system, a WDM coupler is used to distribute signals to
different users. Each ONU is allocated with its own wavelengths.
 Such a system has the advantage of high capacity, privacy, and protocol
transparency.
 The idea of WDM-PON was first proposed by Wagner in Korea and is put in
field trial in Korea by Korea Telecom.

4/30/2021
12

 Passive optical networks are used for fiber-to-the-

home/curb/cabinet/building applications
 Today, two PON variants with time-domain multiple
access, GPON and EPON, are being used
for mass roll-outs.
 WDM-PONs are the next step up from these PONs
to accommodate traffic growth and new applications

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 Today’s Scenario – Access Networks
13

 Today home get essentially 2 types of services

1. plain old telephone service (POTS) over the telephone
network and
2. broadcast analog video over the cable network

 Now Added to this mix

1. data services for Internet access using either digital
subscriber line (DSL) technology over the telephone
network or
2. Cable modem service over the cable network

4/30/2021
 Future Requirement
14

 Efforts are devoted to develop high capacity networks to

accommodate various forms of video such as video-on demand and
HDTV
 Today end user are interested in both internet access and other high
speed access services
 In future the range of services that users are expected to demand is
vast and unpredictable
 Today, end users are interested in both Internet access and other
high-speed data access services, for such applications as
telecommuting, distance learning, entertainment video, and
videoconferencing

 Future, unforeseen applications, may make ever-increasing demands

on BW available in the last mile to provide full services
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 Services Supported by Access Networks
15

 Different types of services that must be supported

by an access network

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16

At a broad level, these services can be classified based on three major

criteria
 bandwidth requirement - can vary from a few kilohertz for
telephony to tens of megabits per second per video stream or even
tens of gigabits per second for high-speed leased lines
 Symmetric (two way), for example, videoconferencing, or asymmetric
(one way), for example, broadcast video)
 Today, while most business services are symmetric, other services tend to be
asymmetric, with more bandwidth needed from the service provider to the user
(the downstream direction) than from the user to the service provider (the
upstream direction)
 Whether the service is inherently broadcast, where every user gets
the same information, for example, broadcast video, or whether the
service is switched, where different users get different information,
as is the case with Internet access
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 Architecture of an Access Network
17
Remote
Telephone nodes Serves one or
company’s Deployed more individual
CO or Cable in field subscribers
Head end RN NIU

Hub RN NIU

Either located
in subscriber
NIU location or
Serves several RN
may itself
homes or business Feeder
serve several
via NIUs Network
Distributio subscribers
n Network

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 Classification of Access Network
18

Distribution Feeder Network

Network Shared BW Dedicated BW

Broadcast (Cable NW) HFC, TPON WPON

Switched (Telephone NW) Telephony, DSL

 Like services, n/w may be broadcast or switched in the context of network

topology
 Different combination of services and network topologies are possible
For example
 broadcast service over broadcast or switched network OR
 switched service may be supported by a broadcast or a switched network
4/30/2021
19

Broadcast Network Switched Network

may be cheaper and provide broadcast well suited for delivering switched
service services
all the NIUs are identical provide more security
– it is not possible for one subscriber
to tap into another subscriber’s data
making them easier to deploy more difficult for one subscriber to corrupt
the entire network
Fault location is generally easier in a
switched network
the “intelligence” is all at the NIUs. Thus whereas in switched networks, it is in the
NIUs may be little complex design network. Thus, NIUs may be simpler
in switched networks than in broadcast
networks

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 Todays Access Network
20

 Twisted Pair Telephone access network

 Individual twisted pair is routed from CO to the individual subscriber
 Primarily designed to provide 4 KHz BW to each home
 It is switched NW that provide dedicated BW to each user

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 Todays Access NW……
21

 Hybrid Fiber Coax Cable

 Channels are broadcast from Head End to RN using sub carrier Multiplexing (SCM) on a laser
 A remote node serves 500 – 2000 homes
 Cable BW used is between 50 to 550 MHz
 Cable carries upto 78 AM-VSB television signals in channels placed 6 MHz apart (American
NTSC standard)
 A return path in 4-50 MHz Window is available

4/30/2021
 Enhanced HFC
22

Bandwidth Allocation

• Provide increased BW per user

• Typically uses same NW architecture as that of HFC but with combination
of several techniques for enhanced BW
• Transmitted frequency range can be increased upto 1 GHz from 500 MHz
• Enhanced HFC deployed in large MAN can deliver upto 862 MHz BW
• Within each subcarrier channel use is made of spectrally efficient digital
modulation.
• eg 256 QAM which provides spectral efficiency of 8bits/Hz.
• Also fibres can drive deeper into the NW and reduce the number of homes
served by a remote node down to about 50 homes, from the 500 homes
typically served by an HFC network
4/30/2021
 Hybrid Fiber Coax and DSL
23

 Switch/Transceiver located at curb or in basement

 Need only 2 optical transceivers
but not pure optical solution
 Lower BW from transceiver to end users
 Need complex converter in constrained environment

feeder fiber N end users

co
access network

4/30/2021
copper
 Fiber Access Network
24

Fiber Copper

CO RN ONU NIU FTTCab

Fiber Copper

CO RN ONU NIU FTTC/FTTB

Fiber

ONU/
CO RN NIU
FTTH

4/30/2021
 Solution
25

Implement Point-to-Multipoint topology purely in optics

 Avoid costly optic-electronic conversions

 Use passive splitters – no power needed.

1:2 passive splitter

N end
core users
Typically N=32
Access
network max defined 128
feeder fiber
4/30/2021
1:4 passive splitter
26 PON Architecture

4/30/2021
 Terminology
27

Splitter

Optical Access
Optical Network Units
Network
NNI
co
Optical Distribution
Network UNI

Terminal
Optical Line Terminal
Equipment

downstream
upstream
4/30/2021
 PON Principle
28

 OLT and ONU work at

 Layer 2 (MAC, ATM adapter, etc.)
 optical transceiver using different ls for transmit and receive.
 Downstream transmission
 OLT broadcasts data downstream to all ONUs in ODN
 ONU captures data destined for its address, discards all other data.
 Encryption 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

4/30/2021
 Ranging
29

 Upstream traffic is in TDMA.

 All ONU at equidistance and Common clock then no signal
overlap.
 Process to establish timing reference between OLT and ONU.
 Measures round trip delay between OLT and ONU.

4/30/2021
Ranging Process [1]
 Bandwidth Allocation
30

 Fixed Bandwidth Allocation

 Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation
 The need can be discovered
 by passively observing the traffic from the ONU
 by ONU sending reports as to state of its ingress queues
 The goals of a Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation algorithm are
 maximum fiber BW utilization
 fairness and respect of priority
 minimum delay introduced

4/30/2021
 Burst-mode Transmission
31

4/30/2021
 Point-to-point fiber approach
32

• Uses a separate pair of fibers from CO to ONU

• Cost on implementation is proportional to No. of ONUs (limitation)
• More installation and maintenance
• Used by NTT Japan for serving few high-speed services
• Bit rate 8 to 32 Mb/s over each fiber. 4/30/2021
 Broadcast and Select TPON
33

• A broadcast and select

TPON.

• The CO broadcasts its

signal downstream to all
the ONUs using a
passive star coupler.

• The ONUs share an

upstream channel in a
time-multiplexed fashion.

• In this case, upstream

and downstream signals
are carried using different
wavelengths over a
single fiber.
4/30/2021
 TPON
34

 Although the architecture is a broadcast architecture, switched

services can be supported by assigning specific time slots to
individual ONUs based on their bandwidth demands
 For the upstream channel, the ONUs share a channel that is
combined using a coupler, again via fixed time division
multiplexing (TDM) or some other multiple access protocol
 In the TDM approach, the ONUs need to be synchronized to a
common clock. This is done by a process called ranging, where
each ONU measures its delay from the CO and adjusts its clock
such that all the ONUs are synchronized relative to the CO
 The CO then assigns time slots to each ONU as needed

4/30/2021
 TPON
35

 This architecture allows the relatively expensive CO equipment to be

shared among all the ONUs and makes use of fairly mature low-cost
optical components
 The CO transmitter can be an LED or a Fabry-Perot laser, and
cheap, uncooled pinFET receivers and LEDs/Fabry-Perot lasers can
be used within the ONUs
 The number of ONUs that can be supported is limited by the
splitting loss in the star coupler
 Each ONU must have electronics that run at the aggregate bit rate
of all the ONUs
 There is a trade-off between the transmit power, receiver sensitivity,
bit rate, and number of ONUs (which determines the splitting loss)
and the total distance covered

4/30/2021
 TPON Standard – APON [2014 onward]
36

 The ATM Passive Optical Network (APON) - based on the

Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) protocol
 It specifies a downstream bandwidth of up to 622 Mb/s
and an upstream bandwidth of up to 155 Mb/s
 Targeted distance is 20 km with a total fiber attenuation
in the 10–30 dB range
 ONUs allow a 16- to 32-way split with this approach
 eg TPON operating at 622 Mb/s using a 32-way splitter
can provide each subscriber with about 20 Mb/s of BW

4/30/2021
 APON…
37

 Its the first Passive Optical Network

 It was used primarily for business applications
 It has ITU-T G.983 standard
 APON is a point-to-multipoint technology
 Compared to point-to-point system, the point-to-
multi-point system is comparatively cheap

4/30/2021
 APON…
38

Advantages of APON
 APON, the fiber system is less expensive than
copper cable based systems in providing the same
bandwidth. So carriers will be able to increase
profit margins, reduce investment, and increase
competitive capability, while users will reduce
the service cost by sharing the resource of the
fiber and bandwidth.
 Longer range for data transfer
 Immune electrical noise
4/30/2021
 BPON
39

 developed by the International Telecommunication

Union (ITU)
 Broadband PON (BPON) is basically APON with some
improvements
 improvements include supporting survivability and
dynamic allocation of upstream bandwidth
 It also created a standard management interface,
called OMCI (ONU management and control
interface), between the OLT and ONU/ONT,
enabling mixed-vendor networks
4/30/2021
 BPON…
40

Advantages of BPON
 Since data for content services and VoIP are

transmitted with higher priority than Internet

access (Web access), real-time live broadcasting
can be viewed with high quality.
 Everyone can receive network services equally,
without being disturbed by heavy users. However,
it is also possible to give a higher priority to
specific users
4/30/2021
 EPON
41

 Ethernet based PON

 It is an IEEE/EFM (IEEE802.3ah) standard for using
Ethernet for packet data
 EPON vendors are focusing initially on developing
fiber-to-the-business (FTTB) and fiber-to-the-curb (FTTC)
solutions, with the long-term objective of realizing a full-
service fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) solution for delivering
data, video, and voice over a single platform
 EPON offers higher bandwidth, lower costs, and
broader service capabilities

4/30/2021
 EPON…
42

Advantages of EPON
 Higher bandwidth up to 1.25 Gbps symmetric

Ethernet bandwidth
 Lower costs, lower up-front capital equipment and
ongoing operational costs
 More revenue, broad range of flexible service
offerings means higher revenues

4/30/2021
 GPON
43

 It is an upgrade of APON, and the IEEE’s Ethernet PON (EPON

or GEPON), which is Gigabit Ethernet over PONs
 The downstream bandwidth is point to multipoint, and the
upstream bandwidth is shared by TDMA.
 For GPON, the downstream bandwidth can be either 1.2 Gb/s
or 2.5 Gb/s; and the upstream bandwidth can be either 155
Mb/s, 622 Mb/s, 1.2 Gb/s, or 2.5 Gb/s with the restriction
that it cannot exceed the downstream bandwidth
 For EPON, the downstream and upstream bandwidths are 1.2
Gb/s
 GPON supports ATM as well as the GPON Encapulation
Method (GEM)
4/30/2021
 GPON…
44

 It is a PON technology operating at bitrates of

above 1 Gb/s
 It supports higher rates, enhanced security, and
choice of Layer 2 protocol (ATM, GEM, Ethernet)

4/30/2021
 GPON…
45

Advantages of GPON
 To design a PON that operates at Gigabit and

higher data rates

 To craft the physical layer specifications to
suit these higher speeds
 To define the most bandwidth efficient protocol
that reflects the data-centric trends in customer
traffic

4/30/2021
 Dynamic bandwidth allocation in PON
46

 BPON, GPON, and EPON protocols support dynamic

bandwidth allocation (DBA),
 where ONUs can send information about their upstream
bandwidth needs to the CO;
 for example, ONUs in GPON send backlogs of their
upstream packet queues.
 The CO determines time intervals when each ONU can
transmit upstream, and sends this information to the ONUs in
grants.
 Because DBA allows the upstream traffic to be statistically
multiplexed, the bandwidth can be oversubscribed.
4/30/2021
 WDM PON
47

 Wavelength Division Multiplexing PON, or WDM-

PON, is a non-standard type of passive optical
networking, being developed by some companies.
 The multiple wavelengths of a WDM-PON can be
used to separate Optical Network Units (ONUs) into
several virtual PONs co-existing on the same
physical infrastructure.
 Alternatively the wavelengths can be used
collectively through statistical multiplexing to
provide efficient wavelength utilization and lower
delays experienced by the ONUs.
4/30/2021
 WDM PON….
48

 There is no common standard for WDM-PON nor any

unanimously agreed upon definition of the term.
 By some definitions WDM-PON is a dedicated
wavelength for each ONU. Other more liberal
definitions suggest the use of more than one wavelength
in any one direction on a PON is WDM-PON. It is
difficult to point to an un-biased list of WDM-PON
vendors when there is no such unanimous definition.
 PONs provide higher bandwidth than traditional
copper based access networks. WDM-PON has better
privacy and better scalability because of each ONU
only receives its own wavelength.
4/30/2021
 WPON…
49

Advantages:
 The MAC layer is simplified because the P2P connections
between OLT and ONUs are realized in wavelength
domain, so no P2MP media access control is needed.
 In WDM-PON each wavelength can run at a different
speed and protocol so there is an easy pay-as-you-grow
upgrade.
Challenges:
 High cost of initial set-up, the cost of the WDM components

 Temperature control is another challenge because of how

wavelengths tend to drift with environmental temperatures.

4/30/2021
 WPON
50

 WDM technology can be applied to TPONs

 WDM can increase the capacity and flexibility of TPONs,
but its widespread adoption depends on keeping costs low
 In WDM PON, the single transceiver at the CO of TPON is
replaced with a WDM array of transmitters or a single
tunable transmitter to yield a WDM PON (WPON)
 This approach allows each ONU to have electronics running
only at the rate it receives data, and not at the aggregate
bit rate
 However, it is still limited by the power splitting at the star
coupler
4/30/2021
 Broadcast-and-select WPON
51

An upgraded version of the

basic PON architecture

The CO broadcasts multiple

wavelengths to all the ONUs,
and each ONU selects a
particular wavelength

As in a conventional TPON, the

ONUs time-share an upstream
channel at a wavelength
different from the
downstream wavelengths.

4/30/2021
 WRPON
52

 Introducing wavelength routing solves the splitting

loss problem while retaining all the other
advantages of the WDM PON.
 In addition, it allows point-to-point dedicated
services to be provided to ONUs
 This leads to the WRPON architecture


4/30/2021
 WRPON
53

Here a passive arrayed

waveguide grating (AWG) is used
to route different wavelengths to
different ONUs in the
downstream direction,
without incurring a splitting loss

As in the TPON and WPON

architectures, the ONUs time-share
a wavelength for upstream
transmission

4/30/2021
 WRPONs….
54

 Several types of WRPONs have been proposed

and demonstrated.
 They all use a wavelength router, typically an
arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) for the
downstream traffic, but vary in the type of
equipment located at the CO and ONUs,
and in how the upstream traffic is supported
 The router directs different wavelengths to different
ONUs

4/30/2021
 WRPON - Passive Photonics Loop (PPL)
55

 The earliest demonstration was the so-called passive

photonics loop (PPL).

 It used 16 channels in the 1.3 μm band for downstream

transmission and 16 additional channels in the 1.55 μm
band for upstream transmission

 This approach is not economical because it need two

expensive lasers for each ONU—one inside the ONU
and one at the central office

4/30/2021
 WRPON - The RITENET Architecture
56

4/30/2021
 The RITENET Architecture….
57

 It uses a tunable laser at the CO

 A frame sent to each ONU from the CO consists of two
parts: a data part, wherein data is transmitted by the CO,
and a return traffic part, wherein no data is transmitted but
the CO laser is left turned on
 Each ONU is provided with an external modulator. During
the return traffic part of the frame, the ONU uses the
modulator to modulate the light signal from the CO
 This avoids the need to have a laser at the ONU
 The upstream traffic from the ONUs is also sent to the router

4/30/2021
 The RITENET Architecture….
58

 The router combines all the different wavelengths and sends

them out on a common port to a receiver in the CO.
 If a single receiver is used in the CO, then the ONUs
must use time division multiplexing to get access to that
receiver.
 Alternatively, if a separate receiver is used for each
wavelength at the CO, each ONU gets a dedicated
wavelength to transmit upstream back to the CO.
 This architecture avoids the need to have a laser at each
ONU. Instead, each ONU has an external modulator

4/30/2021
 WRPON – The LARNET architecture
59

A lower-cost alternative to RITENET is the LARNET architecture

A broadband signal from the LED

at the CO is split into individual
wavelength components by the
AWG and broadcast to all the ONUs

4/30/2021
 The LARNET architecture
60

 It uses an LED at the ONU instead of an external

modulator for transmission in the upstream direction.
 The LED emits a broadband signal that gets
“sliced” upon going through the wavelength router, as
shown in Figure.
 Only the power in the part of the LED spectrum
corresponding to the passband of the wavelength
router is transmitted through to the receiver at the CO.
 With N ONUs, this imposes a splitting loss of at least
1/N—only a small fraction of the total power falls
within the passband of the router
4/30/2021
 The LARNET architecture
61

 More important, an LED can be used at the CO as well

for downstream transmission
 In this case, the signal sent by the CO LED effectively
gets broadcast to all the ONUs
 It is in fact possible to have two transmitters within the
CO: an LED, say, at 1.3 μm, broadcasting to all the
ONUs, and a tunable laser at 1.55 μm selectively
transmitting to the ONUs
 This is an important way to carry broadcast analog
video signals over the digital switched fiber
infrastructure at low cost without having to use a
separate overlay network for this purpose
4/30/2021
 WDM PON
62

 WDM components for PONs are not yet mature and

are more expensive than the components required
for simple broadcast PONs.
 However, WRPONs offer much higher capacities
than the simple broadcast PONs, and simple PONs
can be upgraded to WRPONs as the need arises.

4/30/2021
 Need of New Protocol
63

 PON has a unique architecture downstream

 (broadcast) point-to-multipoint in DS direction
upstream
 (multiple access) multipoint-to-point in US direction

 Ethernet - multipoint-to-multipoint

 ATM - point-to-point

 Do not provide all the needed functionality like receive filtering, ranging,
security, BW allocation
4/30/2021
 Multi-Point Control Protocol
64

 MPCP consist of three tasks.

 Discovery process: Registered newly connected ONU or
Offline ONU.

 Report Handling: Message related to bandwidth

requirements are sent by OLT.

 Gate Handling : Transmitting window of ONU indicated

in gate message.

4/30/2021
 Discovery Process
65

4/30/2021
Discovery Process [1]
 PON Types
66

 Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) PON

 Asynchronous Transfer Mode PON (ATM-PON/APON)

 Broadband PON (BPON)

 Ethernet PON (EPON)

 Gigabit PON (GPON)

 Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) PON

4/30/2021
 TDM PON [1]
67

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 TDM-PON OLT
68

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 TDM-PON ONU
69

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 TDM PON Evolution [2]
70

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 APON / BPON
71

 Both Use ATM frame format to transport data.

 Based on ITU G.983 ATM-PON approved standards.
 Data rates are from 54 Mbps to 155 Mbps.
 Referred more often as Broadband PON (BPON).
 Data rates 622 Mbps.

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 Asynchronous Transfer Mode cell
72

 Connection oriented technology.

 It’s cell relay, Packet switching network and data
link layer protocol which encodes data traffic into
small fixed size packets.
 Provides data link layer services that runs on
physical layer.
 ATM cell consist of 53 bytes.
 48 bytes for data
 5 bytes for header information

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 ATM Cell
73

User-Network Interface ATM cell Network-Network Interface ATM cell

GFC = Generic Flow Control (4 bits) (default: 4-zero bits)

VPI = Virtual Path Identifier (8 bits UNI) or (12 bits NNI)
VCI = Virtual channel Identifier (16 bits)
PT = Payload Type (3 bits) CLP = Cell Loss Priority (1-bit)
HEC = Header Error Control (8-bit CRC)
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 APON Frame format at 155.52Mbps [1]
74

For 622.08-Mbps and 1244.16-Mbps speed, the numbers of time slots are simply
multiplied by 4 and 8 to the numbers shown in the above diagram.
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 Ethernet PON
75

 Based on IEEE 802.3 standard.

Header Payload FCS

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 Gigabit PON (GPON)
76

 Based on ITU-T G.984.

 Boost in Bandwidth and Bandwidth efficiency
through the use of larger, Variable length Packets.
 Two Operation Modes
 GPON Encapsulation Method (GEM)
 ATM

 GPON Transmission Convergence (GTC) layer

provides transport multiplexing between ONUs and
OLT.
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 Transmission Containers
77

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 GTC downstream frame format
78

 GPON Transmission Convergence frames are always 125 msec

long
 19440 bytes / frame for 1244.16 rate
 38880 bytes / frame for 2488.32 rate

GTC frame scrambled 125 msec

PCBd payload PCBd payload PCBd payload

ATM GEM
partition partition

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 Physical Control Block downstream
79

PSync Ident PLOAMd BIP PLend PLend US BW map

(4B) (4B) (13B) (1B) (4B) (4B) (N*8B)

 PSync - fixed pattern used by ONU to located start of GTC frame

 Ident - MSB indicates if FEC is used, 30 LSBs are super frame counter
 PLOAMd - carries OAM, ranging, alerts, activation messages, etc.
 BIP - Bit Interleaved Parity of all bytes since last BIP
 PLend (transmitted twice for robustness) -
 Blen - 12 MSB are length of BW map (in units of 8 Bytes)
 Alen - Next 12 bits are length of ATM partition in cells
 CRC - final 8 bits are CRC over Blen and Alen
 US BW map - array of Blen 8B structures granting BW to US flow.

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 GPON payload
80

 GTC payload potentially has 2 sections:

 ATM partition (Alen * 53 bytes in length)
 GEM partition (now preferred method)

 ATM partition
 Alen (12 bits) is specified in the PCBd
 Alen specifies the number of 53B cells in the ATM partition
 if Alen=0 then no ATM partition
 if Alen=payload length / 53 then no GEM partition
 ATM cells are aligned to GTC frame
 ONUs accept ATM cells based on VPI in ATM header

 GEM partition
 Unlike ATM cells, GEM delineated frames may have any length
 Any number of GEM frames may be contained in the GEM partition
 ONUs accept GEM frames based on 12b Port-ID in GEM header
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 GPON Encapsulation Mode
81

 GEM is similar to ATM

 Avoids large overhead by allowing variable length frames
 GEM is generic – any packet type (and even TDM) supported.
 GEM supports fragmentation and reassembly.
 GEM is header contains the following fields:
 Payload Length Indicator - payload length in Bytes
 Port ID - identifies the target ONU
 Payload Type Indicator (GEM OAM,
congestion/fragmentation indication)
 Header Error Correction field ( 12+1b even parity)

PLI Port ID PTI HEC payload fragment

(12b) (12b) (3b) (13b) (L Bytes)
5B 4/30/2021
 Ethernet/TDM over GEM
82

When transporting Ethernet traffic over GEM:

 only MAC frame is encapsulated (no preamble, SFD, EFD)
 MAC frame may be fragmented.
Ethernet over GEM
PLI ID PTI HEC DA SA T data FCS

When transporting TDM traffic over GEM:

 TDM input buffer polled every 125 msec.
 PLI bytes of TDM are inserted into payload field
 length of TDM fragment may vary by ± 1 Byte due to frequency offset
 round-trip latency bounded by 3 msec.

TDM over GEM

PLI ID PTI HEC PLI Bytes of TDM

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 GEM fragmentation
83

 GEM can fragment its payload

Un-fragmented Ethernet frame
PLI ID PTI=001 HEC DA SA T data FCS

fragmented Ethernet frame

PLI ID PTI=000 HEC DA SA T data1

PLI ID PTI=001 HEC data2 FCS

 GEM fragments payloads for either of two reasons:

 GEM frame may not straddle GTC frame
 GEM frame may be pre-empted for delay-sensitive data

PCBd ATM partition GEM frame … GEM frag 1 PCBd ATM partition GEM frag 2 … GEM frame

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 GPON upstream frame format
125 msec
if all Over head types are present:
PLOu PLOAMd PLSu DBRu payload

 Physical Layer Overhead upstream

 always sent by ONU when taking over from another ONU
 contains preamble and delimiter (lengths set by OLT in PLOAMd)
BIP (1B), ONU-ID (1B), and Indication of real-time status (1B)
 PLOAM upstream (13B) - messaging with PLOAMd
 Power Levelling Sequence upstream (120B)
 used during power-set and power-change to help set ONU power
so that OLT sees similar power from all ONUs
 Dynamic Bandwidth Report upstream
 sends traffic status to OLT in order to enable DBA computation

84 4/30/2021
 TDM-PON Comparison
86

BPON EPON GPON

Standard ITU G.983 IEEE802ah ITU G.984

Data Packet Cell Size 53bytes 1518 bytes 53 to 1518 bytes

Frame Size 622 Symmetric Configurable

downstream; 1.2Gbps 2.4Gbps downstream
155 upstream
1.2 Gbps Upstream

Traffic Modes ATM Ethernet ATM Ethernet or TDM

Voice ATM VoIP or TDM TDM

Video 1550nm overlay 1550 nm overlay Either over RF or IP

Max PON Splits 32 - 64 16 - 256 64 - 128

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 WDM PON [1]
87

WDM Coupler

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