UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY,

TAXILA FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION

ENGINEERING

TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

OPTICAL FIBER COMMUNICATION

SUBMITTED TO

DR. Ali Waqar Azim

SUBMITTED BY

HAJRA SADAQAT

REGISTRATION NO

19-TE-74
Question No#01
Explain Passive Optical Networks (PONs) in detail?
Answer
Definition:
Passive optical networking (PON) is like an active optical networking. It uses fiber optic
cabling to provide Ethernet connectivity from a main data source to endpoints.

While there are numerous subtle contrasts, a reasonable qualification between dynamic
optical systems networking and PON topology is PON's utilization of a method that
disseminates a solitary signal to different branches through unpowered devices called
optical beam splitters.
PON Working:
OLTs and ONTs In a PON network, a device called an optical line terminal
(OLT) is placed at the end of the network. A single fiber
optic cable is connected from OLT to unpowered (passive)
optical beam splitter, which multiplies the signal and
relays it to many optical network terminals (ONTs). End-
user devices such as PCs and telephones are connected to
the ONTs.

As splitting function is one-to-many broadcast of the same

data stream, the ONTs are responsible for filtering packets
meant for the various connected endpoint devices.
Encryption ensures that each ONT reads only the contents
addressed to the endpoints connected to it.

Passive optical splitting it multiple times to "outbound" fibers. In simplest form, an

optical beam splitter splits a light source in two by using
two back-to-back prisms.

Typical gigabit-capable passive optical network (GPON)

deployments mostly use a splitting ratio of 1:32 or 1:64.
Current GPON standards specify up to 128 splits on a
single GPON port. Those same standards set the distance
between active devices at 20 kilometers.

Because PON uses the same strand of fiber to send and

receive data, the passive optical splitter also acts as an
WDM and TDM

Optical splitters take a

single light source (a
single fiber optic strand)
and refract and duplicate
 end devices. To achieve this, PON takes advantage of two
distinct types of long-established telephony multiplexing
concepts: wavelength division and time division.
Wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) allows
bidirectional traffic across a single fiber by using a
different wavelength for each direction of traffic: the
1490-nanometer (nm) wavelength for downstream traffic
and the 1310-nm wavelength for upstream traffic. The
1550-nm wavelength is reserved for optional overlay
services, typically RF (analog) video.
Future iterations of the PON standard will define separate
wavelengths for backward compatibility.

Time-division multiplexing (TDM) allows multiple end

devices to transmit and receive independent signals
across a single fiber by reserving time slots in a stream of
data. PON uses two such technologies: TDM for
downstream traffic and time-division multiple access
(TDMA) for upstream traffic.

As a passive device, the splitter acts as distribution point,

with the single feed of downstream data broadcast to all
connected ONT endpoints. The ONT accepts packets
assigned to its TDM channel (frame time slot). It filters
and discards packets meant for other ONTs.
TDMA enables multiple transmitters to be connected to
GPON standards one receiver. For PON, TDMA is used to recombine the
multiple upstream feeds at the coupler. A splitter and a
coupler are often found in one device.

The ITU-T G.984 family of standards defines GPON. The

Fiber optic cabling first version was ratified in 2003. The standards were
then amended to support coexistence with future WDM
PON technology and reach extensions.

Single-mode fiber is used for GPON.

optical combiner
receiving data traffic
from the same connected
PON Types:
Passive Optical Networks consist of following types: -
• APON (ATM Passive Optical Networks)
• BPON (Broadband PON)
• EPON (Ethernet PON)
• GE-PON (for Gigabit Ethernet PON)
• GPON (Gigabit Ethernet PON)

Benefits and Limitations of PONs: -

Benefits of PONs include the following:

• They are less expensive to send contrasted with most option broadband conveyance
innovations.
• They don't need electrically controlled midspan devices to work.
• They utilize existing fiber Optics.
• Their upgrade paths are ample, and throughput rates are staying aware of elective
advances.
• They are viewed as a secure broadband technology.
• They can be moved over somewhat significant distances, like 20 kilometers, on a
central office loop.
The potential drawbacks of passive optical networks include the following:

• They require a broad fiber deployment.

• Bigger networks can turn out to be less productive because of how much
administration traffic overhead being shipped from the central office to individual
client ONUs.
• Unlike active powered network technologies, PONs should hold fast to severe
vehicle distance limits.

Question No#02

Explain Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) in detail?

Answer

Definition:

Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is a telecommunications standard defined by

ANSI and ITU-T (formerly CCITT) for digital transmission of multiple types of traffic,
including telephony (voice), data, and video signals in one network without the use of
separate overlay networks.

ATM Working:

The "asynchronous" in ATM implies ATM devices don't send and get data at fixed velocities
or using a timer, yet rather arrange transmission speeds dependent on equipment and data
stream reliability. The transfer mode" in ATM refers to the fixed-size cell structure utilized
for bundling data. This cell-based transmission is rather than typical local area network
(LAN) variable-length packet mechanisms, which implies that ATM connections are
unpredictable and can be overseen so that no single information type or association can
consume the transmission path.
ATM innovation started in broadband ISDN (B-ISDN) innovation and works essentially at
layer 2 of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) reference model. ATM interfaces devices
over a WAN utilizing virtual channels (VCs) and virtual paths (VPs). Virtual channels
comprise of at least one actual ATM links associated in a series for sending information
between remote stations. A VC exists just while information is being communicated on it,
and all cells in a given ATM transmission follow a similar VC to guarantee solid information
transmission. A virtual way is an assortment of VCs having a similar source and destination
points that can be utilized to pool traffic being sent to a given destination.

ATM is an connection-oriented technology that requires the foundation of a particular

specific way between two points before information can be shipped between them.

ATM utilizes fixed-size packets called "cells." Each 53-byte ATM cell contains 48 bytes of
information payload and 5 bytes of control and routing information in the header. The
header provides addressing data to changing the packet to its destination. The payload
segment conveys the genuine data, which can be information, voice, or video. The payload
is appropriately called the user information field. The justification for picking 48 bytes as
the payload size is to compromise between the ideal cell sizes for conveying voice data (32
bytes) and information data (64 bytes). The fixed size of an ATM cell makes ATM traffic
straightforward and unsurprising and makes it workable for ATM to work at high
velocities. Normal ATM speeds differ with transmission media and can include:

• 25 Mbps over unshielded twisted-pair (UTP) category 5 cabling

• 155 Mbps over either UTP or fiber-optic cabling
• 622 Mbps and 4.8 Gbps over fiber-optic cabling only
ATM also includes a mechanism for allocating bandwidth dynamically; that is, bandwidth is
allocated only in required amounts and the required direction. As a result, when an ATM
link is idle, it utilizes no bandwidth, which can result in considerable cost savings
depending on the needs of your network.

ATM optimizes performance through different classes of service, which can be allocated
through QoS settings. This is different from frame relay, which is a classless service. The
four classes of ATM services that subscribers can specify depending on their needs are:

• Constant Bit Rate (CBR):

This service level is suitable for applications that are sensitive to cell delay and cell loss,
must have continual availability, and do not require much bandwidth (for example, voice
traffic).

• Variable Bit Rate/Real-time (VBR-RT):

This level is suitable for applications that are sensitive to cell delay and cell loss and
require a large amount of bandwidth (for example, videoconferencing).
 • Variable Bit Rate/Non-Real-time (VBR-NRT):
This is suitable for applications that require a large amount of bandwidth but can tolerate
cell delay and some cell loss (for example, video playback)

• Unspecified Bit Rate (UBR) or Available Bit Rate (ABR):

This level is suitable for network services that do not have special bandwidth or cell
latency/loss needs (for example, file transfer or e-mail).

Benefits and Limitations of ATM: -

Benefits of ATM include the following:

• It is optimized to transport voice, data and video i.e. single network for everything.
• It is used for mixed traffic, real-time and non real time traffic types.
• It is easy to integrate with LAN, MAN and WAN network types i.e. seamless
integration.
• It is QoS oriented and high speed oriented.
• It enables efficient use of network resources using bandwidth on demand concept.
• It uses simplified network infrastructure.

Potential drawbacks or limitations of ATM are as follows:

• Overhead of cell header (5 bytes per cell)
• Complex mechanisms are used to achieve QoS.
• Congestion may cause cell losses
• ATM switch is very expensive compare to LAN hardware. Moreover, ATM NIC is
more expensive compare to Ethernet NIC.
• As ATM is connection oriented technology, the time required for connection setup
and tear down is larger compare to time required to use it.

Question No#03

Explain Ethernet PON (EPON) in detail?

Answer
Definition:

Ethernet PON (EPON) is a PON-based network that carries data traffic encapsulated in
Ethernet frames (defined in the IEEE 802.3 standard). It uses a standard 8b/10b line
coding (8 user bits encoded as 10 line bits) and operates at standard Ethernet speed.

EPON is a point-to-multipoint technology that delivers 1 Gbps upstream and downstream

in FTTH and FTTP networks.

EPON Working:

The IEEE 802.3 standard defines two basic configurations for an Ethernet network. In one
configuration it can be deployed over a shared medium using the Carrier Sense Multiple
Access with Collision Detection (CSMA/CD) protocol. In another configuration, stations
may be connected through a switch using full-duplex point-to-point links. Properties of
EPON are such that it cannot be considered either a shared medium or a point-to-point
network; rather, it is a combination of both. In the downstream direction, Ethernet frames
transmitted by the OLT pass through a 1: N passive splitter and reach each ONU. N is
typically between 4 and 64. This behavior is similar to a shared-medium network. Because
Ethernet is broadcast by nature, in the downstream direction (from network to user), it fits
perfectly with the Ethernet PON architecture: packets are broadcast by the OLT and
extracted by their destination ONU based on the media-access control (MAC) address as
shown in figure below,

In the upstream direction, due to the directional properties of a passive optical combiner,
data frames from any ONU will only reach the OLT, and no other ONUs. In that sense, in the
upstream direction, the behavior of EPON is similar to that of a point-to-point architecture.
However, unlike in a true point-to-point network, in EPON data frames from different ONUs
transmitted simultaneously still may collide. Thus, in the upstream direction (from users to
13 network) the ONUs need to employ some arbitration mechanism to avoid data collisions
and fairly share the fiber-channel capacity.

A contention-based media access mechanism (something similar to CSMA/CD) is difficult

to implement because ONUs cannot detect a collision at the OLT (due to directional
properties of optical splitter/combiner). An OLT could detect a collision and inform ONUs
by sending a jam signal; however, propagation delays in PON, which can exceed 20 km in
length, can greatly reduce the efficiency of such a scheme. Contention-based schemes also
have a drawback of providing a non-deterministic service, i.e., node throughput and
channel utilization may be described as statistical averages. There is no guarantee of a node
getting access to the media in any small interval of time. It is not a problem for CSMA/CD-
based enterprise networks where links are short, typically over-provisioned, and traffic
predominantly consists of data. Subscriber access networks, however, in addition to data,
must support voice and video services, and thus must provide some guarantees on timely
delivery of these traffic types.
To introduce determinism in the frame delivery, different non-contention schemes have
been proposed as shown below,

All ONUs are synchronized to a common time reference and each ONU is allocated a
timeslot. Each timeslot is capable of carrying several Ethernet frames. An ONU should
buffer frames received from a subscriber until its timeslot arrives. When its timeslot
arrives, the ONU would “burst” all stored frames at full channel speed which must
correspond to one of standard Ethernet rates (10/100/1000/10000 Mbps). If there are no
frames in the buffer to fill the entire timeslot, idle 10 bits characters are transmitted. The
possible timeslot allocation schemes could range from a static allocation (fixed time-
division multiple access (TDMA)) to a dynamically adapting scheme based on
instantaneous queue size in every ONU (statistical multiplexing scheme). There are more
allocation schemes possible, including schemes utilizing notions of traffic priority, Quality
of Service (QoS), Service-Level Agreements (SLAs), over-subscription ratios, etc.
Decentralized approaches to implement a dynamic slot assignment scheme are also
possible, in which ONUs decide when to send data and for how long. These schemes are
somewhat similar to a token-passing approach, except that in this case it is a passive ring.
In such a scheme, every ONU, before sending its data, will send a special message
announcing how many bytes it is about to send. The ONU that is scheduled next (say, in
round-robin fashion) will monitor the transmission of the previous ONU and will time its
transmission such that it arrives to the OLT right after the transmission from the previous
ONU. Thus, there will be no collision and no bandwidth will be wasted. This scheme is
similar to hub polling [11]. However, this scheme has a major limitation: it requires
connectivity (communicability) between ONUs. That imposes some constraints on PON
topology; namely, the network should be deployed as a ring or as a broadcasting star. This
requirement is not desirable as (a) it may require more fiber to be deployed, or (b) fiber
plant with different topology might be already pre-deployed. In general, a preferred
algorithm shall support any point-to-multipoint PON topology. In an optical access
network, we can count only on connectivity from the OLT to every ONU (downstream
traffic) and every ONU to the OLT (upstream traffic). That is true for all PON topologies.
Therefore, the OLT remains the only device that can arbitrate time-division access to the
shared channels.

Benefits and Limitations of EPON: -

Benefits of EPON include the following:

• Very convenient to carry IP packets

• Ubiquitous and cheap hardware

• scale able(100Mbps,1Gbps,10Gbps)

Potential drawbacks or limitations of EPON are as follows:

• Requires QOS technique for real time traffic

Question No#04

Explain Gigabit Ethernet PON (GPON) in detail.

Answer

Definition:
GPON stands for Gigabit Ethernet passive optical network (PON). GPON uses Asynchronous
Transfer Mode (ATM) for voice, Ethernet for data, and proprietary encapsulation for voice.
This means that it uses fixed-sized cells instead of variably sized packets of data. It offers
faster Gbps than EPON (Ethernet passive optical network) on downstream and upstream
bandwidths.
A GPON system consists of an optical line terminal (OLT) that connects several optical
network terminals (ONTs/ONUs) together using a passive optical distribution network
(ODN).

GPON Working:

The main optical transmitter, called the OLT (Optical Line Terminal) is located within the
telecommunications operator building, the central office. A laser in the OLT injects the
photons from the central office to a fibre-optic cable made of glass and plastic that ends at
a passive optical splitter. The splitter breaks the single signal from the central office into
numerous signals that may eventually be distributed to up to 64 customers. The number of
customers served by one laser is a result of the operator’s engineering criteria, which might
choose to lower the number, very often to 32 customers.

Furthermore, the operator might decide to split the signal twice, for example once into
eight and further down the cable again into four. The maximum distance between the
central office can be 20km, although operators will usually limit it to 16km, to be able to
provide a good quality of service.

For the copper, the channel gets smaller and smaller, so it is more difficult for the electrons
to go through. In the optical system, the channel is always the same, so they go through
more or less till the end. In addition, the signal from one copper cable will alter the signal of
an adjacent cable, degrading the signal even further.”

Within the 16km range of a fiber central office, then, all households can have high-speed
internet, in contrast to ADSL technology, whose signal deteriorates as the distance between
the central office and the household grows, with already significant loss of signal after 3km.

The quality of fiber service is at least 10 times better, from up to 100 megabits with a
copper-based network to one gigabit with fiber, although it will usually be even higher as a
copper-based system will not reach above 50 megabits.
 GPON utilizes both upstream and downstream data by means of Optical Wavelength
Division Multiplexing (WDM).

Benefits and Limitations of GPON: -

Benefits of GPON include the following:

• GPON offers higher bandwidth delivery

• It has a 2.4 Gbps downstream capacity and a 1.2 Gbps upstream capacity.
• It uses larger, variable length packets to transmit data
• Employs frame segmentation to give higher quality for voice and video traffic.

Potential drawbacks or limitations of GPON are as follows:

The disadvantages of GPON technology can be attributed only to the fact that the fiber-
optic cable is quite sensitive to kinks, therefore it is categorically not recommended to lay it
around the apartment, put it in the baseboards. In this case, the cable may break or its
bandwidth may decrease. Pets, which are really not indifferent to GPON technologies, can
also create a problem.

Question No#05

Highlight the main differences between EPON and GPON?

Answer

GPON is based on a standard for new-generations of broadband passive optical access.

GPON is widely deployed in fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) networks. GPON provides:
• Up to 2.5 Gbps
• Quality of Service (QoS) full business protection and advanced security
• Full operations, administration and management (OAM) functions
• Ethernet access to user

EPON rivals GPON by using Ethernet packets instead of the ATM cells GPON uses. EPON is
deployed as point-to-multipoint in fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) networks or fiber-to-the-
home (FTTH) networks. EPON uses a single optical fiber to serve multiple premises or
users. EPON provides:
• Data rates of 1 Gbps upstream and downstream
• Access to data like Internet, voice, and video service.
 Differences: -
GPON is purposely built as a point-to-multipoint protocol. EPON calls upon Ethernet to
function the same as GPON. In other words, GPON is efficient and EPON is not.

GPON:

• Usable bandwidth: Up to 2.5 Gbps downstream and upstream

• Reach: Up to 128 ONUs
• Subscriber cost: Higher than EPON
• Encryption: Downstream only
• Popular deployment area: US

EPON:

• Usable bandwidth: 1 Gbps upstream and downstream

• Reach: Up to 32 ONUs per OLT
• Subscriber cost: Lower than GPON
• Encryption: Upstream and downstream
• Popular deployment area: Asia and Europe