High-speed Broadband Over Fiber Networks
PON – or passive optical networking – is a point-to-multipoint fiber to or near the premises network architecture where single optical fibers serve multiple dwellings. These networks are enabled by a number of pieces of network equipment including optical network terminals (ONTs) and optical line terminals (OLTs). Service providers prefer PON because it’s less expensive to implement than point-to-point architectures.
There are many flavors of PON. GPON – or Gigabit Passive Optical Network – is rapidly becoming the worldwide standard for fiber to the premises and fiber to the cabinet deployments. It’s chosen over other versions of PON because of its high-speed downstream and upstream bandwidth and enhanced security. Another reason that GPON is gaining adoption is its efficiency. It packages user traffic with frame segmentation to provide higher quality of service for voice and video communications. Because of these advantages, GPON is expected to be the fastest growing segment of the PON market.
Ikanos is actively involved in the PON market, having licensed high-performance GPON physical layer technology with Ethernet Layer 2 functionality from Terrawave (now Occam). We will combine Occam’s technology with our own to create a high-performance GPON residential gateway reference platform. This platform is currently undergoing compatibility and interoperability testing through the Full Service Access Network (FSAN) Group.
