Comprehensive comparison between GPON access technology and EPON

At present, the GPON Access Technology in China has developed very rapidly. Many people may not know the characteristics and advantages of the GPON access technology and EPON. It does not matter. After reading this article, you will certainly have a lot of GAINS, I hope this article will teach you more things. The arrival of the 3G era will greatly promote the demand for network bandwidth, while the second generation of FTTH (fiber-to-household) technology, such as passive optical network (PON, as an excellent replacement product that provides high-speed broadband services, it features low cost, long life, and long distance. Therefore, it is highly praised by the industry. As China's three major carriers accelerate 3G network construction and start operation of related services, optical communication has received unprecedented attention in the Chinese market since last year, FTTH and other optical access networks built in the form of PON have also been quickly started.

The mainstream EPON (Ethernet Passive Optical Network) technology in the Chinese market is one of the two main network construction methods in PON. China Telecom and China Unicom have made multiple tenders, and EPON has developed rapidly in the past two years. China Unicom recently launched a bidding for the world's largest EPON equipment, marking a new period of development for EPON. In addition to China, Japan and South Korea also use EPON internationally. Japan began to build an EPON network and has begun providing television, voice, and Internet services based on it. In the United States, India, Europe and other countries and regions, another PON construction method GPON Access Technology (gibit Passive Optical Network) is becoming the mainstream. It is different from EPON. The main difference between the two is that EPON is based on Ethernet and IP protocols, while GPON supports ATM, TDM, SONET/SDH, Ethernet, and other protocols, the downstream speed and traffic distribution ratio are also different. The industry generally believes that, compared with the EPON controller, the GPON access technology controller can support a variety of services while increasing bandwidth, but the construction cost of the GPON access technology is too high, in addition, it was previously considered that the technology was not mature enough. Which PON is used has always been the focus of debate in the industry.

Recently, with the development of optical access networks in China, the competition between GPON access technology and EPON has become lively, and both camps have argued that with the increasing maturity of GPON access technology, recently, it seems that the voice of GPON access technology has gradually increased, and the question about whether the cost of GPON is too high has been thrown out by vendors. Supporters believe that the high integration of the GPON chip can support multiple services without external chips. In the long term, the cost is not higher than that of EPON. However, EPON supporters generally think that the GPON access technology provides functions, and EPON can also provide functions. The overall cost is better than that of GPON access technology. From the operator's perspective, apart from EPON, their GPON has also started pilot. China Telecom, China Unicom, and China Mobile are no exception. Therefore, the operator's attitude seems to be uncertain now, which brings a variable to the PON market development.

From the perspective of PON chip vendors, the GPON access technology is very different from the EPON market structure. Currently, there are only three mainstream EPON vendors in China, namely PMC-siider, Teknovus and Cortina, these three suppliers account for all the markets. GPON chip vendors include Broadlight, PMC-sield, Broadcom, Marvel, Cortina, Hisilicon, Infineon, and Ikanos, chip giant Broadcom recently announced that it will launch GPON chips to the Chinese market this year to support the development of GPON. It is said that equipment enterprises have also begun to develop and use their own GPON chips and solutions. For example, some equipment enterprises are using FPGA (Programmable Gate Array) technology to develop GPON solutions. Whether or not this trend will reduce the cost of GPON, We need to observe that, in any case, the development of PON chips by equipment companies itself will be a new challenge for chip companies.

However, EPON has the primary advantage in China. At present, 10GEPON has started to be built on a large scale in China. From this point of view, it is better than GPON access technology. Whether GPON can be launched on a large scale depends on the degree of industrial chain support. However, the rise of GPON access technology will undoubtedly change the market structure of PON chips in China and increase the number of PON chip vendors in China from three to 10 or more. The PON market in China is entering a new critical period. Its trend will be related to the position of related chip companies in the Chinese market. How can we seize new opportunities in the Chinese market, it will be a question they must seriously think about.

From another perspective, there are no domestic enterprises, whether it is a GPON access technology or a supplier of EPON chips. This is a pity, except that few enterprises can provide optical transceiver chips, domestic PON core chips in optical communication are almost blank. China's communication market will be one of the largest markets in the world. From the perspective of strengthening the core technology, the independent core optical communication chip is worth looking forward.