How will next generation passive optical network (PON) technologies look, and what are the drivers for future PON evolution? In this article, Derek Nesset reviews the existing PON standards and outlines the future roadmap of the FSAN (Full-Service Access Network) group and ITU-T standardization body.

Since around 2007 the so-called GPON standard is installed in mass deployments for residential customers. It is hard to see that another generation is needed in the FTTH market in the near future. However, novel standards such as NG-PON2 offer a much higher capacity of up to 240 Gb/s comprising both TWDM and point-to-point WDM channels. Such systems are aimed to also transport mobile networks’ traffic especially so called mobile fronthaul. In the future, the capacity can be further increased by replacing 10 Gb/s channel line rates with 25 Gb/s components. Still in all the existing standards co-existence with all legacy PONs has always been a prerequisite.

A future PON may be released from these burdens and be optimized for greenfield application. Also the main focus may shift to transport of mobile traffic with an additional FTTH option as “nice-to-have” feature. Another important feature of future systems could be enhanced protection and resilience functions. This is closely linked to the transport of “higher value” services. Additionally, in-service OTDR (Optical Time Domain Reflectometry) monitoring of the fiber plant could be an interesting diagnostics function to offer higher service availability. Furthermore, convergence is a major industry trend and disruptive approaches such as Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Software Defined Networking (SDN) are maturing rapidly. The future will tell how these will affect the development of upcoming PON standards.

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