Evolution of Optical Access Networks: Architectures and Capacity Upgrades

Passive optical network (PON) is one of the most successful broadband access architectures being deployed worldwide. PONs provide high capacity, increased reach, and low-power consumption at a very reasonable cost, on par with the cost of DSL deployments today. This paper provides an overview of present and emerging PON technologies, and discusses PON´s important role in the evolution of optical access from the architectural perspective. While describing the evolution of optical access architecture, we present two important integration options: optical+wireless access integration and metro+access integration. Potential PON capacity upgrades are discussed with special emphasis on achieving a seamless upgrade. We evaluate different PON evolution strategies in the context of next-generation PON, where gradual, demand-based migration demonstrates a number of significant benefits.