A Brief Introduction of PON

    A passive optic network (PON) uses fibre optic technology to transport data from a single source to multiple endpoints. The term "passive" refers to the use of fibre optic cables connected to unpowered taps, which in turn carry data from a service provider network to multiple customers. Technically speaking, only the taps are passive, as the source and receiver ends of the network still require power to operate.

    Service providers incur lower operating costs because PON services can support multiple clients from a single router/switch port and use unpowered taps to direct data to subscribers. In addition, less equipment and fibre is required than if the service were delivered over an AON architecture.

With fibre optic cabling, subscribers get the highest speed connection available and PON is energy efficient - less electrical equipment means less power consumption.          What’s more, PON transmits data upstream and downstream at similar speeds and without loss of quality.

    There are two main standards of PON architecture: Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) and Ethernet Passive Optical Network (EPON). Both have data transfer speed specifications ranging from 1 Gbps to 10 Gbps. The PON architecture uses point-to-multi-point links as traffic flows from one source (service provider) to multiple users. By using splitters, a single bundle of fibres from an optical line terminal (OLT) can be replicated to multiple branches, thus serving 128 different locations.