Gigabit Passive Optical Network: Understanding its Functionality and Architecture

This project aims to study and understand the concepts of Gigabit Passive Optical Networks (GPON) including its architecture, functionality, and advantages. The literature review covers the history of GPON and its comparison with other passive optical networks. The project also discusses the challenges faced during the study and the scope of the project. The course code and college/university information are not mentioned.

Gigabit Passive Optical Network 1
GIGABIT PASSIVE OPTICAL NETWORK
Student by (Name)
Professor’s (Name)
College
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Table of Contents
GIGABIT PASSIVE OPTICAL NETWORKS (GPONS) 2
Introduction 2
Aims and Objectives of this project 3
Scope of the project 5
Literature review 5
Challenges during the project8
Conclusion 9
Reference 10

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GIGABIT PASSIVE OPTICAL NETWORKS (GPONS)
INTRODUCTION
There has been a vast improvement in network transmission with the search for a better and
efficient media that is not susceptible to noise and other external factors during data transmission.
This led to development of fiber optic cables which in turn has led to creation of optical network.
Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) is a type of passive optical network which acts as a
point to multi point access system for network. It is mostly used currently in Fiber to the home
network (FTTH) and Fiber to the building network (FTTB). A passive optical network is a system
that makes use of fiber optic cables to bring network to the end user and power is not needed when
the network is operating.
A GPON makes use of splitters enabling it to be used in serving multi points or multi homes from
a central place. It reinforces Ethernet protocols and uses Advanced Encryption Standards (AES)
for security purposes.
It constitutes of a splitter, an optical line terminal and an optical network unit. The splitter
separates or splits up the signal from the central provider while the optical line terminal work
together with optical network unit in reception of the light signals and converting them to
electrical signals respectively. It allows both downstream and upstream transmission since it came
from Asynchronous Transfer Mode.
It is among passive optical network standards which include ATM optical network, gigabit capable
passive optical network and gigabit Ethernet passive optical networks.
Its standard organization is ITU.T and it performs an OMCI communication with the ONT. It has a
split ratio ranging 1:64 to 1:128. Its ability to perform both upstream and downstream is due to its
use of optical wavelength division multiplexing.

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The GPON has two standards G.984.1 and G.984.2 which describe its characteristics and
specifications respectively. Some of its features include an optical budget of class A /B/B+ or C, a
bandwidth efficiently of 92% and a rate of 2.488G, It has very good quality of service because it
supports Ethernet, ATM and TDM. It covers long and large areas of up to 20 kilo meters and it
allows triple play services. In downstream transmission the speed is 2.4 G bps while in upstream
transmission the speed is 1.24 G bps this speed is set by electrical overlay.
Some of the reasons why one could use this technology is due to its high-speed transmission, its
quality of service, the reduction of network nodes, its architecture and the number of terminals
that it supports.
This project is aimed at studying gigabit passive optical networks by understanding its
functionality, architecture and other aspects, the project not only captures the knowledge that I
have acquired on this topic but also academic knowledge from other scholars through their peer
reviewed journals, articles and books.
GPON networks can be developed by the use of MATLAB simulation tool putting into
consideration IPACT algorithm and the bandwidth allocation scheme.
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THIS PROJECT
This project is aimed at studying and understanding the concepts of gigabit passive optical
networks in the following areas:
To Study typical architectures for gigabit passive optical networks.
This will entail study of the structure, design and the physical connection of this type of passive
network and how it affects the functionality and effectiveness of this type of network.
To understand operation principle and typical services of a GPON.

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This will entail trying to learn the laws, conducts, theories and ideas behind the functioning and the
makeup of this type of network and the services that it can perform or those that it can do as a result
of the principles it uses to operate.
To determine the optical components in GPON
This will entail the identification of software and hardware elements or constituents that make up
this type of virtual network it will also encompass finding out each of their purposes in this network
in determining their usefulness and how they can be enhanced or upgraded in this type of network.
To analyses the power budget in GPON.
In this objective it will be established how power is allocated to different components and how
power loss in fiber optic is measured, it will involve the calculations that are involved in optical
power budget and cost analysis in fiber optic connection and how it affects the functioning of the
network.
To analyze the optical power loss for a splitter.
In this objective the goal will be to find out the types of power loss in the splitter, their causes and
how to prevent them. It entails finding out the number of factors that dictate power loss in splitter
such as the number of inputs and output.
To use a suitable computer simulation tool to design GPONS.
This will entail the finding out of design and implementations equipment that enable the
Functionality of a gigabit passive network.
To determine in a detailed manner gpon standards
This will entail identifying the use of the two available gpon standards and identifying them
Differences when connecting a gpon network.

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SCOPE OF THE PROJECT
This project is meant to understand the functioning of a gigabit optical network fully and in details
as explained in the above aims and objectives, it will be undertaken in different stages as it has been
divided for easy analysis and a lot of research, in times of time it will take the time that will be
allocated by the supervisor. The project during the process of research will be wide in research in
terms of the discussion base of this topic, the research will begin from passive optical network
before narrowing down to gigabit optical network in attempt to fully understand gigabit optical
networks. It will contain literature from about the year 2000 where scholars started to have a vision
of what this network could look like up to date where it has been developed and further prediction
are being made on how it will be in the future. This project paper can be used in an environment
where the users have a basic knowledge on information technology since it clearly defines words
and terms that have been used within the project, though it could be easily understood by experts in
the field of network especially focusing on the transmission of data and information in networks. By
the end of this project all the aims and the objectives should have been reached.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The need for better transmission speed, larger coverage and better quality of service (QoT) has seen
a vast improvement in the area of networks. It should be noted that this need did not just start
recently, Cochence (2002) in his book activities on next generation network (NGN) recognizes the
incoming of a new generation of networks that would connect the globe to create a Global
Information Infrastructure (GII), in his book he encourages the manufacturers, operators and service
providers to start thinking of medium that would enable this efficiency in transmission, while this
scholar strong focus is on internet it also recognizes his thought on the future of network
transmission. By this time GPON was already being introduced since before GPON there was
BPON,EPON and GEPON which led to the development of GPON when it had failed in upstream

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transmission of bit rate above 622 M bps as a result of issues in the synchronization within the
physical layer His idea was expanded over time with scholars like Tatipula and Grossetete (2004)
who argued that this could be met when there could be integration and expansion of IPv4 and IPv6
in coming up with tools that could help in the transmission of networks, they therefore focus on
tunneling and transmission.
J.D Angelopoulos and a large number of authors (2004) acknowledge the presence of GPON and its
benefits in their book titled Efficient transport of packets with Qos in an FSAN aligned GPON, they
term the technology of introduction of gigabit passive optical network as a “milestone in
technology” due to its move and closeness with full service access network (FSAN), they go ahead
to appreciate the presence of protocols and controls that allow upstream of network using this
medium, the capability of GPON in the support of upstream is also acknowledged by Xing-Zhi Qui
and Johan Auwelick (2004) who also produced a journal called Development of GPON upstream
physical media dependent prototypes.
Gosh et al. (2005) recognize the vast increase in network transmission and the introduction of
gigabit passive optical network, and they compare optical technology to other forms of
transmissions that were widely available at the time, they look at issues like the area of coverage,
the quality of service, effectiveness of network design and effect of weather on the transmission of
network being a key distort in a network, they conclude that technologies which are wireless will be
the future of transmission, in this same year P. Ossieur and Verhulst in their book A 1.25gb/s burst
mode receiver for GPON applications term GPON as economic and safe answer to the problems
that are related to bandwidth.
With the increase of time the introduction of GPON into different sectors arose as seen in Stephen
Smith book (2006) Business services over GPON network where he praises GPON for its reliability
and performance emphasizing on its support for small businesses that are either carried at home or
in business offices.

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With the increase in knowledge and application areas of GPON and passive networks more and
more comparison was done in comparing the types of passive optical networks mostly EPON and
GPON as seen in B Skubic et al. (2009) a comparison for EPON, GPON and the next generation
TDM PON. The preceding year also saw the discovery of more and more features of GPON from
the extension of area of coverage as written by Dnesset and S Appathurai (2009) and B zhu and D
Nesset (2009)
As the years have progressed scholars have written with several intentions along GPON even as it
has encroached newer areas such as telecommunication as Faruk Selmanovic (2010) illustrates in
his book GPON in telecommunication network where he carries out a study to prove that GPON
technology are the best in terms of economic sues and technical issues ,with time even more and
more scholars have come out not only to prove the befits of this type of passive network but also
just to provide information about it, this include scholars like O Haran (2010) who in his book
GPON rogue- ONU detection based on error counts talks on how to detect or identify mistakes in
GPON other scholars have moved ahead to education on ways of analyzing the performance of
GPON.
It should be noted that while other scholars are still discovering and exploring new research along
this network, some other are already neglecting and trying to focus on an environment with better
technology , this include Aurzada et al. (2011) who focuses on next generation of (NG -PONS)
which he says will be an improvement of both GPON and EPON, he claims that the next generation
PONS should have wavelength counts, split ratios and data rates and lastly that it should allow the
combination of access together with metro networks. This view is supported by GC Mandal (2018)
who talks of the replacement of GPON with RSOA which will support bidirectional triple play
services, V Houstman (2017) notes that there has been a huge progress towards moving to the next
generation of PON due to the continuous increase in technology and service providers.

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While very few scholars look at the disadvantages of this type of network some are bold enough to
not only state the benefits of this network but also the disadvantages of this network and how they
are going to affect the future .An example is M Pradeep and B Pavithra (2017) who are able to point
out the cost problem that is associated with GPON as a network in the searching of its network
requirements. M Miyan (2017) also outline s some of these disadvantages in his book the intelligent
replication technique for cloud, based on K- Means clustering.
In view of literature that is available concerning this topic it is very observable that GPON
originated around the year 2000’s, since then it has been of great benefits which is seen by the
number of scholars writing about it and its features especially around the year 2000 to 2005. There
are also a few scholars who are bold enough to address the negative side of this technology, on the
other hand other scholars are already focusing on the new technology of the future finding
alternatives to the present passive technology.
It leaves a lot of questions on why so many authors have not talked on the disadvantages of GPON,
is it fear? Is it lack enough knowledge? Or was it the joy of experiencing a new type of passive
network?
Due to this question I therefore developed the need to go through with keenness and understanding
gigabit passive network in order to be able to fully understand its functioning, benefits and
disadvantages including if there is need for improvement in terms of migration to the technologies
that are being proposed as alternatives to GPON
CHALLENGES DURING THE PROJECT
Some of the challenges that I have are:
Contrasting and diverse views towards the same topic which confuses me on what to stick to what
to follow and the correct one when comparing them to the rest, what I will do to ensure that this

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does not affect my project is to collect several views and more books so that the ones with clear
illustrations to be picked
Another challenge is the use of several short forms and acronyms of words when researching in this
topic, in order to solve this, I’ll have to ensure that I continuously search the full name of the
acronyms so that I do not end up misled or assumption an information in the wrong way.
One of the challenges that I had was going through several books in coming up with the literature
review because it takes a good amount of time and brain energy, well the solution to that was to
focus and study because without going through the books none can understand the wisdom and
knowledge that is stored within them.
One major challenge that I have noted is the complexity of some terms that are used, I have realized
that I will have a problem with understanding or knowing the words and the only solution to this is
by studying.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, this project will be a learning opportunity to expand my knowledge on the area of
passive optical network as a whole focusing on gigabit passive optical networks from
knowledgeable scholars, it’s also a learning opportunity on how to write better and quality project
as instructed by the supervisor.

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REFERENCE
Angelopoulos, J.D., Leligou, H.C., Argyriou, T., Zontos, S., Ringoot, E. and Van Caenegem, T.,
2004. Efficient transport of packets with QoS in an FSAN-aligned GPON. IEEE
Communications magazine, 42(2), pp.92-98.
Angelopoulos, J.D., Leligou, H.C., Argyriou, T., Zontos, S., Ringoot, E. and Van Caenegem, T.,
2004. Efficient transport of packets with QoS in an FSAN-aligned GPON. IEEE
Communications magazine, 42(2), pp.92-98.
Cale, I., Salihovic, A. and Ivekovic, M., 2007, June. Gigabit passive optical network-GPON.
In Information Technology Interfaces, 2007. ITI 2007. 29th International Conference on (pp.
679-684). IEEE.
Cochennec, J.Y., 2002. Activities on next-generation networks under global information
infrastructure in ITU-T. IEEE Communications Magazine, 40(7), pp.98-101.
Ghosh, A., Wolter, D.R., Andrews, J.G. and Chen, R., 2005. Broadband wireless access with
WiMax/802.16: current performance benchmarks and future potential. IEEE
communications magazine, 43(2), pp.129-136.
Lee, J.Y., Hwang, I.S., Nikoukar, A. and Liem, A.T., 2013. Comprehensive performance assessment
of bipartition upstream bandwidth assignment schemes in GPON. Journal of Optical
Communications and Networking, 5(11), pp.1285-1295.
Miyan, M., 2017. Intelligent Replication Technique for Cloud; based on K-Means
Clustering. International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science, 8(3).
Ossieur, P., Verhulst, D., Martens, Y., Chen, W., Bauwelinck, J., Qiu, X.Z. and Vandewege, J., 2005.
A 1.25-Gb/s burst-mode receiver for GPON applications. IEEE journal of solid-state
circuits, 40(5), pp.1180-1189.
Pradeep, M., Pavithra, B., Pooja, R., Parameswari, S. and Pandi, M., 2017. A Survey of FTTH
Elements Based on Broadband Access Network. Asian Journal of Applied Science and
Technology (AJAST), 1(7), pp.54-59.

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Qiu, X.Z., Ossieur, P., Bauwelinck, J., Yi, Y., Verhulst, D., Vandewege, J., De Vos, B. and Solina, P.,
2004. Development of GPON upstream physical-media-dependent prototypes. Journal of
Lightwave Technology, 22(11), p.2498.
Selmanovic, F. and Skaljo, E., 2010, October. GPON in telecommunication network. In Ultra-
Modern Telecommunications and Control Systems and Workshops (ICUMT), 2010
International Congress on (pp. 1012-1016). IEEE.
Smith, S.A., 2006, March. Business class services over a GPON network. In National Fiber Optic
Engineers Conference (p. JThB96). Optical Society of America.
Smith, S.A., 2006, March. Business class services over a GPON network. In National Fiber Optic
Engineers Conference (p. JThB96). Optical Society of America.
Tatipamula, M., Grossetete, P. and Esaki, H., 2004. IPv6 integration and coexistence strategies for
next-generation networks. IEEE Communications Magazine, 42(1), pp.88-96.
Websites
https://datatracker.ietf.org/documents/LIAISON/file1019.pdf
https://theye.eu/public/Books/IT%20Various/The%20ComSoc%20Guide%20to%20Passive
%20Optical%20Networks.pdf
https://www.itu.int/itudoc/gs/promo/tsb/85155.pdf
https://www.slac.stanford.edu/slac/sass/talks/opticalfiber.pdf
http://fac.ksu.edu.sa/sites/default/files/
Performance_Evaluation_of_Standard_IPACT_for_Future_Long_Reach_Passive.pdf