Broadband optical access: components for passive optical networks (overview)

The need for broadband access is well appreciated by the telecommunications industry, and many types of broadband-access networks have been built. It is widely accepted that wired optical networks is a most promising solution to the broadband-access problem. This paper focuses on passive optical networks (PONs) because PON is a major technology today. We concentrate on the components of PONs. After brief survey of the principle of PON operation, architectures, topologies, protocols and standards, we turn our attention to the PON physical layer. We analyze the structure and elements of PON components and discuss their technical characteristics.