GPON

Bringing Fiber to the Home: Benefits of GPON

One way of providing fiber to the home is through a Gigabit Passive Optical Network, or
GPON (pronounced 'djee-pon').
GPON is a point-to-multipoint access mechanism. Its main characteristic is the use of passive
splitters in the fiber distribution network, enabling one single feeding fiber from the provider's
central office to serve multiple homes and small businesses.
GPON has a downstream capacity of 2.488 Gb/s and an upstream capacity of 1.244 Gbp/s that is
shared among users. Encryption is used to keep each user's data secured and private from other
users. Although there are other technologies that could provide fiber to the home, passive optical
networks (PONs) like GPON are generally considered the strongest candidate for widespread
deployments.

Why choose GPON?

When planning a fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) evolution for their access networks, service
providers can choose between three generic FTTH architectures: point-to-point; active
Ethernet; and passive optical networking (PON) such as GPON.

"Point-to-point" is an Ethernet FTTH architecture similar in structure to a twisted-pair cable phone

network; a separate, dedicated fiber for each home exists in the service provider's hub location. The
point-to-point architecture has merits for small-scale deployments such as citynets, but is not
suitable for large-scale deployments due to its poor scalability in terms of hub location space or the
number of required hub locations, power consumption and feeder fibers.

An "active Ethernet" architecture is based on the same deployment model as fiber to the node
(FTTN) with active street cabinets; it is therefore feasible as a complement or migration path
towards FTTH for larger deployments in very high-speed digital subscriber line (VDSL)-dominated
environments.

GPON is a fully optical architecture option that offers the best of all worlds. A GPON system
consists of an optical line terminal (OLT) that connects several optical network terminals (ONTs)
together using a passive optical distribution network (ODN). Like active Ethernet, it aggregates
users in what is called the "outside plant" or OSP, which means no mess of fibers in a central office
somewhere; like point-to-point, it avoids the need for active electronics in the field by employing a
passive OSP device (the optical splitter). Being a passive device, the GPON splitter requires no
cooling or powering and is therefore extremely stable; in fact, it virtually never fails.

How does GPON work?

GPON has been called "elegant" for its ability to share bandwidth dynamically on a single optical
fiber. Like any shared medium, GPON provides burst mode transmission with statistical usage
capabilities. This enables dynamic control and sharing of upstream and downstream bandwidth
using committed and excess information rate (CIR and EIR) parameters. Users can be assured of
receiving their committed bandwidth under peak demand conditions, and of receiving superior
service when network utilization is low. While subscribers rarely require sustained rates of 100 Mb/s
each, bursting beyond this to the full line rate of a PON system (about 1.25 Gb/s upstream or 2.5
Gb/s downstream in the case of GPON) is easily enabled using the right subscriber interface. This
allows a GPON to be used for many years even if subscribers have a regular need to transmit
beyond an engineered guaranteed limit of 100 Mb/s.

GPON was developed with the support of the FSAN (Full Service Access Network) Group
and the ITU (International Telecommunication Union). These organizations bring the major
stakeholders in the telecoms industry together to define common specifications, ensuring full
interworking between OLTs and ONTs. The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)
has also defined a PON standard, called Ethernet PON or EPON. The EPON standard was launched
earlier than GPON and has been deployed successfully. IEEE specs are however restricted to the
lower optical and media access layers of networks, and full interoperability for EPON must therefore
be managed in a specific case-by-case way at every implementation. Additionally, EPON runs at
only 1 Gb/s, upstream as well as downstream, providing a lower bandwidth than GPON. These
factors make EPON a less attractive technology choice for providers making FTTH investment
decisions today.

Implementing GPON

One of Alcatel-Lucent's first GPON implementations is Jönköping Energi.

Jönköping is a mid-sized city in Sweden where about 98 percent of households enjoy high-speed
broadband access. This is to a very large extent due to the activities of one company, Jönköping
Energi. It is a utility provider that, in addition to its traditional electricity offering, delivers optical
connectivity to residential and business users throughout the Jönköping area.

Jönköping Energi deployed one of the first GPON architectures in the region. Their
customers are enthusiastic: once installed, their "box" works almost effortlessly, delivering voice,
video and Internet without any upkeep after the initial setup.

Jönköping Energi have found that their Alcatel-Lucent GPON solution delivers smooth,
maintenance-free, highly reliable performance which can be run with a limited
operational staff. Revenues have been considerably augmented, as the company is now able to
provide triple play services to consumers throughout the city in a scalable, cost-effective way.
Perhaps most importantly, Jönköping Energi feels they have a system that will easily accommodate
new or evolving systems, as they become available.