CENTRE FOR LEARNING

GPON

GIGABIT CAPABLE PASSIVE OPTICAL NETWORK

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GPON SYLLABUS

 OVERVIEW OF FIBRE OPTICS

 RECAP: ACCESS NETWORKS
 FIBRE TO THE X (FTTX) NETWORK ARCHITECTURE
 OPTICAL NETWORKS
 GIGABIT CAPABLE PASSIVE OPTICAL NETWORK (GPON) TECHNOLOGY
 OLTE (OPTICAL LINE TERMINAL EQUIPMENT)
 ONU/ONT (OPTICAL NETWORK UNIT/TERMINAL)
 PRACTICALS

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  OVERVIEW OF FIBRE OPTICS

It has become apparent that fibre-optics are steadily replacing copper wire as an appropriate
means of communication, signal transmission. They span the long distances between local
phone systems as well as providing the backbone for many network systems. Other system
users include cable television services, university campuses, office buildings, industrial plants,
and electric utility companies. A fibre-optic system is similar to the copper wire system that
fibre-optics is replacing. The difference is that fibre-optics use light pulses to transmit
information down fibre lines instead of using electronic pulses to transmit information down
copper lines. Why Optic Fibre?

FIBRE OPTIC CABLE ADVANTAGES OVER COPPER:

1. SPEED: Fibre optic networks operate at high speeds - up into the gigabits

Technology Service Max. Data Rate Shared? Source

(Mbps)
Down/Up

VSAT Satellite Broadband 20/8 Mostly Satcom

HFC Docsis3.0 50/5 Yes Docsis3.0

LTE 4GLTE 100/50 Yes 3GPP
FTTc VDSL2 100/100 Yes ITU-T G.993.2

FTTH Fiber Service 10,000/2,500 Yes ITU-T G.987

Fiber offers best broadband–other technologies, such as WDM PON offer even more bandwidth

 VSAT –Very Small Aperture Terminal

• HCF –Hybrid Fiber Co-axial
• LTE –Long Term Evolution
• FTTC –Fiber to The Cabinet
• FTTH –Fiber to The Home
• VDSL -Very-High-Bit-Rate Digital Subscriber Line

2. BANDWIDTH: large carrying capacity

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48 copper connector 48 fibre connector

Below is an example of a connector which supports 12 fibres in a single ferrule.

3. DISTANCE: Signals can be transmitted further without needing to be "refreshed" or

strengthened.

100GBASE-ER4 supports at least 40km in SM fibre without boosting.

4. RESISTANCE: Greater resistance to electromagnetic noise such as radios, motors or other

nearby cables.
5. MAINTENANCE: Fibre optic cables costs much less to maintain. Very small attenuation.
6. NO NEXT LOSS.
7. IDEALLY SUITED FOR CARRYING DIGITAL SIGNALS.
8. SECURITY: Data cannot be seen or heard outside the cable
9. NONE SPARKING.
10. SMALL DIMENSIONS: little weight. (1gm/10kg for transportation of same amount of data.)
11. NO CORROSION.
12. GALVANIC SEPARATION: no electrical connection between point A and B.

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Disadvantages of Optic Fibres

1. More expensive per metre than copper.

2. More fragile than electrical wires.
3. Affected by various chemicals including Hydrogen gas.
4. Most fibres become opaque when exposed to radiation.
5. Requires special skills and expensive equipment to work on them.

OPTIC FIBRE TECHNOLOGY

It involves signals being relayed in form of light energy. The fibres are either glass or plastic. The
optic fibre consists of the core, cladding, and jacket(s).

Structural design of optic fibre.

Optical fibres are made up of three components:
Core - Thin glass centre of the fibre where the light travels
Cladding - Outer optical material surrounding the core that reflects the light back into the core.
Buffer coating - Plastic coating that protects the fibre from damage and moisture.

How optical fibre technology works

The light in a fibre-optic cable travels through the core by constantly bouncing from the
cladding (mirror-lined walls), a principle called total internal reflection. Because the
cladding does not absorb any light from the core, the light wave can travel great distances.
However, some of the light signal degrades within the fibre, mostly due to impurities in the
glass. The extent that the signal degrades depends on the purity of the glass and the
wavelength of the transmitted light. Below is a diagram of how total internal reflection
works in an optical fibre.

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Light source

TYPES OF OPTIC FIBRES

1. SINGLE MODE FIBRES

Single Mode optic fibre cable is a single strand (most applications use 2 fibres) of glass
fibre with a diameter of 8.3 to 10 microns that has one mode of transmission (light is sent
in one path, single optical wave guide). Single Mode Fibre has a relatively narrow
diameter, through which only one mode will propagate, typically 1310 or 1550nm. It
carries higher bandwidth (fifty times more) than multimode fibre and carries signals for
longer distances. It is more expensive that multimode fibre. Data is sent though single
mode fibre at multi-frequency (WDM Wave-Division-Multiplexing) so only one cable is
needed (GPON)

Light wave

2. MULTI MODE FIBRES

In multimode fibre, light waves are dispersed into numerous paths, or modes, as they travel
through the cable's core, typically 850 or 1300nm. Typical multimode fibre core diameters are
50, 62.5, and 100 micrometers. However, in long cable runs (greater than 3000 feet [914.4
meters), multiple paths of light can cause signal distortion at the receiving end, resulting in an
unclear and incomplete data transmission. This fibre offers speeds up to 100Mbps on distances
longer than 2km but can operate in the Gbps range over distances shorter than 2km.

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Light waves

SINGLE MODE vs MULTI MODE

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APPLICATIONS OF MONOMODE OPTIC FIBRES

1. SUBMARINE CABLES

2. TERRESTRIAL
3. METROPOLITAN NETWORKS ACCESS NETWORKS (FTTX)
4. ACCESS NETWORKS (FTTX)

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 5. CAMPUS NETWORKS

6. MEDICAL USES - Optical fibres are well suited for medical use. They can be made in
extremely thin, flexible strands for insertion into the blood vessels, lungs, and other hollow
parts of the body. Optical fibres are used in a number of instruments that enable doctors to
view internal body parts without having to perform surgery.

APPLICATIONS OF MULTIMODE OPTIC FIBRES

1. DATA CENTRES

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 2. BACKPLANES

LOSSES IN OPTIC FIBRE

Absorption

Any impurities that remain in the fibre after manufacture will block some of the light energy. The
worst culprits are hydroxyl ions and traces of metals. The answer is to ensure that the glass is not
contaminated at the time of manufacture and the impurities are reduced as far as possible.

Rayleigh scatter

Microscopic density variations in fibre scatter light, leading to backward propagating Rayleigh signal.

This is the scattering of light due to small localized changes in the refractive index of the core and the
cladding material. There are two causes, both problems within the manufacturing processes. The
first is the inevitable slight fluctuations in the ‘mix’ of the ingredients. These random changes are
impossible to completely eliminate. It is a bit like making currant bun and hoping to stir it long
enough to get all the currants equally spaced.

The other cause is slight changes in the density as the silica cools and solidifies. All the light that now
finds itself with an angle of incidence less than the critical angle can escape from the core and is lost.
However, much of the light misses the discontinuity because it is so small.

Fresnel reflection

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When a ray of light strikes a change of refractive index and is approaching at an angle close to the
normal, most of the light passes straight through. Most of the light but not all. A very small
proportion is reflected back off the boundary.

Making use of Fresnel reflection

The return of the Fresnel reflection from the end of a fibre gives us a convenient and accurate
method of measuring its length. Imagine a situation in which we have a drum of optic fibre cable
marked 5 km. Does the drum actually contain5 km? Or 4.5 km? Or is it in five separate lengths of 1
km? It is inconvenient, to say the least, to uncoil and measure all fibre as it is delivered. The solution
is to make use of Fresnel reflection that will occur from the far end. We send a short pulse of light
along the fibre and wait for the reflection to bounce back. Since we can calculate how fast the light is
traveling and can measure the time interval, the length is easily established. This magic is performed
for us by an instrument called an Optical Time Domain Reflectometer (OTDR).

Bending losses

A sharp bend in a fibre can cause significant losses as well as the possibility of mechanical failure. It is
easy to bend a short length of optic fibre to produce higher losses than a whole kilometre of fibre in
normal use.

COLOUR CODING USED IN OPTIC FIBRE

Typical colour coding used for the first 12 fibre strands in a tube or unit.

The colour coding also apply when selecting units of fibre strands.

1. Blue

2. Orange

3. Green

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4. Brown

5. Slate

6. White

7. Red

8. Black

9. Yellow

10. Violet

11. Rose

12. Aqua

When we come to the 13th fibre we start at blue again but we add a thin black stripe called a tracer.
The 14th fibre would be orange with a black tracer. What colour would we use for the fibre number
20? Now, there’s a problem. Using the above method, we would expect black with a black tracer.
We break from the sequence and use black with a yellow tracer. Another method, used in loose tube
cables, is to wrap individual bundles of fibres with different coloured threads.

OPTIC FIBRE CONNECTORS

Connectors and adapters are the plugs and sockets of a fibre optic system. They allow the data to be
re-routed and equipment to be connected to existing systems. When a connector is purchased, it
always comes with a plastic dust cap to prevent damage to the polished end of the optic fibre. It is
poor workmanship to leave fibres lying around without the caps fitted.

Colour schemes

There is a colour scheme advised by the international standards which states that there should be a
color-coding scheme on the ‘visible’ part of the connector bodies and adaptors.

 Multimode-Beige
 Single mode- Blue ST (straight tip)

Types of connectors

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  Fibre connector, physical contact
 Subscriber connector
 The LC connector
 The MT-RJ connector

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Optical patch cords

A patch cord is a short length of a simple optical cable, typically one to five meters that is used to
connect the active or final equipment into the cable plant, usually by way of the patch panel. The
patch cord can be of a single fibre, simplex, or two fibres, duplex. If it is duplex then the convention
is to cross the circuit so that A goes to B and B to A.

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 ACCESS NETWORKS

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 `

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 OPTICAL NETWORKS

What is Optical Network?

It is a network that uses fibre optic cable containing both active and passive
elements. Active elements are in Central Office, at customer, in repeaters,
switches and etc. All that equipment add cost and complexity to the
network. What can be done instead? Passive Optical Network (PON) which
had no active components between CO and customer. Passive equipment has
no electrical power needs, it guides the traffic signals contained within
specific optical wavelengths. Voice, video and data traffic flows (triple play)
can be easily implemented using different wavelengths.

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 FIBRE TO THE X (FTTX) NETWORK ARCHITECTURE

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Solutions for Optical Access Network

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 GIGABIT CAPABLE PASSIVE OPTICAL NETWORK (GPON) TECHNOLOGY

PASSIVE OPTICAL NETWORK STANDARDS

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EPON and GPON are the most used technology in FTTH deployment

BPON, or broadband PON, was the most popular PON application in the beginning. BPON
uses ATM as the protocol. ATM is widely used for telephone networks and the methods of
transporting all data types (voice, Internet, video, etc.) are well known. BPON digital signals
operate at ATM rates of 155, 622 and 1244 Mb/s.

GPON, or gigabit-capable PON, uses an IP-based protocol and either ATM or GEM (GPON
encapsulation method) encoding. Data rates of up to 2.5 Gb/s are specified and it is very
flexible in what types of traffic it carries. GPON enables “triple play” (voice-data-video) and
is the basis of most planned FTTP applications in the near future. In the diagram above, one
merely drops the AM Video at the CO and carries digital video over the downstream digital
link.

EPON or Ethernet PON is based on the IEEE standard for Ethernet in the First Mile. It uses
packet-based transmission at 1 Gb/s with 10 Gb/s under discussion. EPON is widely
deployed in Asia. The system architecture is the same as GPON but data protocols are
different.

The following table explains the difference between GPON and EPON.

GPON (ITU-T G.984) EPON (IEEE 802.3ah)

Downlink/Uplink 2.5G/1.25G 1.25G/1.25G

Optical Link
Class B+:28dB;Class C: 30dB PX20: 24dB
Budget

Split ratio 1:64 --> 1:128 1:32

Actual downlink
2200~2300Mbps 92% 980Mbps 72%
bandwidth

Actual uplink
1110Mbps 950Mbps
bandwidth

Complete OMCI function + Flexible and simple OAM

OAM
PLOAM + embed OAM function

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 TDM service &
synchronized Native TDM, CESoP CESoP
clock function

Upgradeability 10G 2.5G/10G

DBA schedule contains TCONT,

PORT-ID; fix Support DBA, QoS is
QoS bandwidth/guarantee supported by LLID and
bandwidth/non guarantee VLAN
bandwidth/ best-effort bandwidth

10%~20% higher cost than --

Cost EPON currently, and almost same
price in large volume

INTRODUCTION TO THE GPON SYSTEM

 GPON is a PON technology. GPON supports an upstream rate of 1.25Gbit/s and

downstream access rate of 2.5 Gbit/s, and also supports ultra-long transmission with
a maximum physical reach of 20 km and maximum logical reach of 60 km. At the
same time, GPON supports a1:64 split ratio, which can be extended to 1:128 and
enables GPON to support a large number of users and cover a wide area.
 In the GPON network, the OLT is connected to the optical splitter through a single
optical fibre, and the optical splitter is then connected to ONUs. Different
wavelengths are adopted in the upstream and downstream directions for
transmitting data. The upstream wavelength is 1310 nm and downstream
wavelength is 1490 nm. The GPON adopts WDM to transmit data of different
upstream/downstream wavelengths over the same ODN.
 Data is broadcast in the downstream direction and transmitted in the TDMA mode
(based on timeslots) in the upstream direction.
 In the downstream direction, all data is broadcast to all ONUs from the OLT. The
ONUs then select and receive their respective data and discard the other data.
 GPON supports Triple－play service, providing competitive all-service solution.
 GPON supports high-bandwidth transmission to break down the bandwidth
bottleneck of the access over twisted pair cables, so as to satisfy the requirements of
high-bandwidth services, such as IPTV and live TV broadcasts.

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  GPON supports the long-reach (up to 20 km) service coverage to overcome the
obstacle of the access technology over twisted pair cables and reduce the network
nodes.
 With complete standards and high technical requirements, GPON supports
integrated services in a good way.
 GPON is the choice of large carriers in the international market.
 VOD: Video-On-Demand
 HDTV: High-Definition TV

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GPON OPERATION
GEM:
In the GPON system, a GPON encapsulation mode (GEM) frame is the smallest service-
carrying unit and the most basic encapsulation structure. All service streams are
encapsulated into the GEM frame and transmitted over GPON lines. The service
streams are identified by GEM ports and every GEM port is identified by a unique Port-
ID. The Port-ID is globally allocated by the OLT. That is, the ONUs connected to the
OLT cannot use GEM ports that have the same Port-ID. The GEM port is used to identify
the virtual service channel that carries the service stream between the OLT and the
ONU. It is similar to the VPI/VCI of the ATM virtual connection.

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GPON adopts Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) technology, facilitating bi-
direction communication over a single fibre.
In the downstream direction, the traffic multiplexing functionality is centralized. The OLT
multiplexes the GEM frames onto the transmission medium using GEM Port-ID as a key
to identify the GEM frames that belong to different downstream logical connections.
Each ONU filters the downstream GEM frames based on their GEM Port-IDs and
processes only the GEM frames that belong to that ONU.

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  In GPON, downstream frames are transmitted in a broadcast manner with a fixed
length of 125us. Same downstream data arrives at all ONUs and then each ONU
filters the incoming data based on GEM PORT-ID.
 In GPON, upstream frames are transmitted in the TDMA manner. The uplink is
divided into time slots and the time slots are allocated to ONUs according to the
BWmap field in GPON upstream frames. In this way, all ONUs can transmit data
in a certain order and no collision occur. Each frame has 19440 time slots.(max
payload:19440-12*128)
 In GPON, T-CONT is introduced to the uplink. T-CONT is a container that carries
data, similar to the VC in the SDH. Data are transmitted through the particular T-
CONTs. T-CONT eases bandwidth allocation and facilitates dynamic bandwidth
 The OLT sends pointers in the PCBd, and these pointers indicate the time at
which each ONU may begin and end its upstream transmission. In this way, only
one ONU can access the medium at any time, and there is no contention in
normal operation. The pointers are given in units of bytes, allowing the OLT to
control the medium at an effective static bandwidth granularity of 64 kbit/s.
However, some implementations of the OLT may choose to set the values of the
pointers at a larger granularity, and achieve fine bandwidth control via dynamic
scheduling.

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DBA PRINCIPLE
 In the GPON system, the OLT controls an ONU's upstream data traffic by
sending authorization signals to the ONU. PON requires an effective TDMA
mechanism to control the upstream traffic, so that data packets from multiple
ONUs do not collide when packets are transmitted upstream. Nevertheless, the
collision-based mechanism requires QoS management in an optical distribution
network (ODN), a passive network. This is physically impossible, or causes
severe efficiency decrease. Due to the above-mentioned reason, a mechanism
for management of the upstream GPON traffic has been a primary focus in
standardization of GPON traffic management. It drives the development of the
ITU-TG.983.4 Recommendation, which defines the dynamic bandwidth allocation
(DBA) protocol for management of the upstream PON traffic.

 In the GPON DBA principle, the GPON system controls the upstream traffic by
allocating data authorization to each transmission container (T-CONT) inside the
ONU. The OLT needs to know the traffic status of a T-CONT to determine the
authorized amount to be allocated to the T-CONT. By using the DBRu field or the
Payload field in the upstream frame, the ONUs report their data statuses to the
OLT. After receiving ONUs' data statuses, the OLT uses DBA to periodically
update the upstream BWmap information according to the status of ONU data
waiting to be sent and notifies all ONUs of the updates through the downstream
frame. Thus, every ONU can dynamically adjust its upstream bandwidth
according to the actual data traffic to be sent, thereby improving the utilization of
upstream bandwidth.

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T-CONT
 A service carrier in the upstream direction in the GPON system. All GEM ports
are mapped to T-CONTs. Then, service streams are transmitted upstream by
means of the OLT'sDBA scheduling. T-CONT is the basic control unit of the
upstream service stream in the GPON system. Every T-CONT is identified by
Alloc-ID. The Alloc-ID is globally allocated by the OLT. That is, every T-CONT
can be used by only one ONU connected to the OLT.

 There are five types of T-CONT; therefore, T-CONT selection varies during the
scheduling of different types of upstream service streams. Every T-CONT
bandwidth type has its own quality of service (QoS) feature. QoS is mainly
represented by the bandwidth guarantee, which can be classified as fixed,
assured, non-assured, best-effort, and hybrid mode (corresponding to type 1-type
5 in T-CONT types).

 Recap;

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GPON Frame Structure
 The figure above shows the GPON frame structure.
 The GPON downstream frame is invariably 125 μs long and it comprises Physical
Control Block downstream (PCBd) and Payload.
 PCBd mainly consists of the GTC header and the upstream bandwidth map
(BWmap).
 The GTC header is mainly used for performing frame delimitation, clock
synchronization, and FEC.
 The BWmap is mainly used for notifying every ONU of its upstream bandwidth
allocation, thereby determining the start and end timeslots of the T-CONT
corresponding to every ONU in the upstream transmission process. In this way,
all ONUs send data according to timeslots uniformly specified by the OLT and
data collision is avoided.
 In the upstream direction, service scheduling is performed in the TDMA mode
according to T-CONT. All ONUs connected to a GPON port share the upstream
bandwidth and send their data upstream at their own timeslots according to the
BWmap requirements. At the same time, every ONU reports its status of data to
be sent to the OLT through the upstream frame. Then, the OLT uses DBA to
allocate upstream time slots to ONUs and sends updates in every frame.

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NOTE:

 PLOu: Physical Layer Overhead upstream

 PLOAM: Physical Layer OAM
 PLOAMu: PLOAM upstream
 PLSu: Power Levelling Sequence upstream
 DBRu: Dynamic Bandwidth Report upstream
 The current application is: Alloc ID = T-CONT ID * 256 + ONU ID.
 The lengths of the upstream frame and downstream frame at each GPON rate
are the same.
 Every upstream frame contains the content carried by one or more T-CONTs.
The BWmap in each downstream frame identifies the start time and end time of
each T-CONT transmission.
 An ONU must send a PLOu each time before the ONU receives the media
access right to PON from another ONU. If an ONU is allocated two consecutive
Alloc-IDs (the end time of one is smaller by 1 than the start time of the other), the
ONU must not send the PLOu of the second Alloc-ID.
 The payload of an upstream frame may contain three types of content: the ATM
cell, the GEM frame, and the DBA report.

 GPON supports a downstream transmission rate of 2.488Gbit/s, a frame length of

38880 bytes, and a frequency of one frame every 125 μs, as shown in GPON
downstream frame structure and PCBd structure.

 The OLT broadcasts PCBd to all ONUs. Every ONU receives the entire PCBd
and then acts upon the relevant information contained therein.

 A PCBd contains information such as frame synchronization information, physical

layer OAM information, and BIP check field.US BWMap (upstream bandwidth
map) is the upstream transmission bandwidth map sent to each T-CONT by the
OLT. The bandwidth map is transmitted through the US BW Map field in the
PCBd of the downstream frame. In this way, MAC control is implemented.

 GPON uses TDM for the upstream transmission. Therefore, when multiple ONUs
transmit data upstream concurrently, transmission conflicts occur. The avoidance
mechanism for such a conflict is that the OLT sends a notification through the
downstream frame, informing each ONU of its corresponding timeslot for
upstream transmission.

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  Both of the TDM and GEM transfer time are 125us/frame

 The TDM source adaptation process should queue the incoming data in an
Ingress-buffer and once a frame (i.e., each 125 μs) signal the GEM frame-
multiplexing object the number of bytes that are ready to be transported within
the current GEM frame

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 GPON IS THE CHOICE OF LARGE CARRIES
IN THE INTERNATIONAL MARKET

END

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