Internet access promotes the rapid development of xPON Technology

Global Internet access is growing rapidly, and xPON technology is also developing rapidly and more mature and stable. So I studied the development pattern of EPON and GPON networks and shared it with you here, hoping it will be useful to you. According to the expected plan in China, GPON will be commercially available in the second half of the year. At that time, there will be a situation where both EPON and GPON networks will be used in China, it will become a matter of great attention in the industry.

Currently, from the perspective of the development of the entire communication industry, the development of PON technology is still in its infancy. Although Japan and Korea have four to five years of application experience, they are basically limited to Internet access applications, applications in most regions in China, North America, Europe, and the world are just starting. At present, the communication and operation environment has undergone profound changes compared with those five years ago, new demands such as triple play, FMC, and full-service operation are becoming a reality.

Related network technologies, such as IP technology, Ethernet technology, and PON technology, are developing rapidly to meet the requirements of the new era. IP technology is evolving from traditional Internet technology to multi-service IP bearer technology at the telecom level, ethernet is also being upgraded to a carrier-class Ethernet. Likewise, PON technology, whether it is EPON or GPON, has many issues to be studied, such as the integration of data, voice, and video for Internet access, backup power problems, telecom-level O & M management support problems, FTTH cost issues, and other issues need to be solved urgently.

In the evolution of PON technology, the next generation of EPON technology development is 10 GEPON, GPON next generation technology evolution route is more long-term, divided into two stages, Phase 1 is NGA1, including WDM-PON and XG-PON10GPON ), based on the reuse and protection of the existing PON technology, a larger bandwidth is provided. Stage 2 is NGA2, which will introduce a PON technology with higher speed, wider coverage, and higher split ratio.

The choice of EPON and GPON in a specific network is invisible to users from the perspective of end users, especially in the FTTB construction mode and the terminal devices in the user's home, we only see Ethernet and telephone interfaces, and do not need to consider GPON and EPON. Therefore, the introduction of EPON and GPON is only a problem of network technology selection for carriers. After two years of discussion, there has been a lot of consensus in the industry, mainly focusing on two points: Application Types and network creation costs.

For traditional Internet access applications, what technology is introduced mainly depends on the network construction cost, including two aspects: one is the network construction cost for a single user, and the other is the network O & M cost. At present, China is mainly concerned with the network construction cost of individual users. When the overall cost of EPON is low, carriers adopt EPON construction. When the overall cost of GPON is low, carriers adopt GPON construction.

In addition to Internet access applications, full-service operations and triple-play applications have added many high-level service requirements. Therefore, the technology and cost will be more balanced, GPON is a technology developed on the basis of APON, BPON, and EPON, and has a post-development advantage. Its capacity is twice that of EPON, it is well designed for fault detection, O & M management, and high-quality business assurance capabilities. Therefore, it is a good choice to introduce GPON in the application phase of full-service operation and triple play, however, this choice also requires the cost of a single GPON user to be reduced to a reasonable level.

Currently, the PON technology usage strategy of domestic carriers is: on the one hand, in the period of rapid development of Internet access services, we are actively promoting the construction of EPON. At the same time, considering the application possibilities of triple play and full-service operation, and operational network normalization factors, synchronization is to actively promote the GPON pilot, promote all aspects of the industrial chain to reduce the cost of GPON single user. According to industry estimates, the cost of a single GPON user is expected to be close to the expectations of domestic operators by the end of this year.

We may also notice that Internet access control policies in Europe and North America are being relaxed, and major operators in North America and Europe are increasingly active in gpon ftth construction, mainstream operators in other regions around the world are encouraged to start FTTH construction. The scale-up of global PON construction is a good news for FTTx of domestic operators. First, GPON construction in other regions around the world will directly reduce the cost of GPON single user; second, whether it is EPON or GPON, from the perspective of product implementation, EPON and GPON have a large number of sharing technologies. The Global FTTH scale construction will dilute this part of the cost. Therefore, domestic operators will be beneficiaries, and vice versa.