GPON, the Ultimate Pertinent of Next Generation Triple-play Bandwidth Resolution

Optical transmission is getting more popular in the access network due to the increasing demand for bandwidth. New services like IP television (IPTV) transmission, video on demand (VoD) etc. over Internet together along high speed Internet access are confronting the demand of higher bandwidth at the customer end in today's Ethernet network backbone. Even though today's well deployed XDSL (i.e., VDSL/VDSL2+, SHDSL) solutions can satisfy bandwidth demand but are limited to the restriction regarding distance. Hereby, the suitable solution for high bandwidth demand with a long reach can be met by reaching optical cable to cus- tomer end directly. One of the possible ways would be to install passive optical network (PON). Gigabit PON (GPON) is the far-most advanced PON solution used by European and US providers while providers in Asia predominantly use EPON/GePON. This GPON is the basic technology to support the structure of the next-generation fiber to the home (FTTH) system. This paper provides an overview of such GPON solution associating its network architecture, transmission mechanisms and some key services.