Pon

University of Twente
Department of Electrical Engineering

Chair for Telecommunication Engineering
Ethernet over Passive Optical

Networks
by
Christiaan Boomsma
Master thesis
Executed from 01-10-2004 to 24-05-2006
Supervisor: prof. dr. ir. W.C. van Etten
Advisors: dr. ir. C.G.H. Roeloffzen
Rajeev Roy Msc
Summary
The need for triple play digital broadband services increases every day. Both service
providers and manufacturers of electrical equipment provide new techniques to the
end-user. Although there are a lot of possibilities nowadays, the development has not
been stopped yet. New products are sometimes based on a new technique, others are
an improvement of a previous version.
A new initiative in the Netherlands is the Freeband project. This national project
contains several smaller projects with a common purpose, improve the fixed infrastructure in the Netherlands. One of this sub-projects is the Freeband Broadband Photonic
project. It is started to investigate the possibilities of providing a high speed, multiple
services access point to a commercial or private end-user. Services presented to the
user are for example internet, television and telephony. To achieve this, a so called
Passive Optical Network (PON) will be used. Designs for this PON network are
defined in three different standards delivered by the IEEE and ITU-T. Each standard
describes a PON network based on a different technique. Depending on the technique
the standards are called Broadband-PON (BPON), Gigabit-capable PON (GPON) and
Ethernet-PON (EPON). Every standard provides a certain interface to the user, however not every interface is suitable. If a user is confronted with a new technique the
migration to this should be easy and cheap.
In this thesis these three different standards analyzed by their performance, physical properties and implementation possibilities. The last chapter will provide some
suggestions for the Freeband Broadband Photonic project.
iii
iv
Summary
Contents
Summary
iii
Preface
ix
1 Optical communication
1.1 Optical networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.1.1 Passive Optical Network architectures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.1.2 Passive versus Active Optical Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1
1
3
4
2 Standardization of Passive Optical Networks

2.1 ITU-T G.983.x BPON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.1.1 BPON physical layer properties . . . . . . . . .
2.1.2 BPON frame format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2 ITU-T G984.x GPON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2.1 GPON network architecture . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2.2 GPON Physical Media Dependent (GPM) layer
2.2.3 GPON Transmission Convergence (GTC) layer
2.2.4 GTC Downstream . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2.5 GTC upstream . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2.6 GTC upstream payload mapping . . . . . . . .
2.2.7 GEM data mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.3 EPON IEEE 802.3ah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.3.1 EPON stack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.3.2 EPON layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.3.3 EPON frame format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3 A comparison between standards
3.1 Possible network structures . . . . .
3.1.1 Network redundancy . . . . .
3.1.2 Additional broadcast services
3.1.3 Multiple standards on a single
v
. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
physical fiber
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
7
8
9
11
19
19
21
23
25
29
32
33
35
35
36
39
.
.
.
.
45
45
45
48
49
vi
Contents
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5
3.6
Physical Layer overhead . . . . . . . . . . . .

3.2.1 BPON Timing constraints . . . . . . .
3.2.2 GPON Timing constraints . . . . . . .
3.2.3 EPON Timing constraints . . . . . . .
Available security and data protection options
3.3.1 BPON reliability and security . . . . .
3.3.2 GPON reliability and security . . . . .
3.3.3 EPON reliability and security options .
Data encapsulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.4.1 BPON interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.4.2 GPON interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.4.3 EPON interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . .
ONU and OLT initialization . . . . . . . . . .
3.5.1 BPON ONU initialization . . . . . . .
3.5.2 GPON ONU initialization . . . . . . .
3.5.3 EPON ONU initialization . . . . . . .
Effective rate / overhead . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.6.1 BPON performance . . . . . . . . . . .
3.6.2 GPON performance . . . . . . . . . . .
3.6.3 EPON performance . . . . . . . . . . .
4 Implementations and recommendations

4.1 Purposes of the Freeband Broadband Photonic
4.2 Implementations from a userpoint of view . .
4.3 Available service protocols . . . . . . . . . . .
4.4 Implementation examples . . . . . . . . . . .
4.4.1 An GPON example . . . . . . . . . . .
4.4.2 An EPON example . . . . . . . . . . .
4.5 Which standard to implement . . . . . . . . .
4.5.1 Bandwidth and users . . . . . . . . . .
4.5.2 The mapping of services . . . . . . . .
4.5.3 The physical devices . . . . . . . . . .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
project
. . . . .
. . . . .
. . . . .
. . . . .
. . . . .
. . . . .
. . . . .
. . . . .
. . . . .
5 Conclusions and recommendations

5.1 General conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.1.1 Differences between BPON, GPON and EPON
5.1.2 Interoperability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.1.3 Plug-and-play options . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.1.4 Physical differences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.2 Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
49
50
50
51
52
53
55
58
58
58
59
59
59
59
59
60
60
61
61
61
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
63
63
64
64
65
65
66
67
67
67
68
.
.
.
.
.
.
69
69
69
70
70
70
71
Contents
5.2.1
5.2.2
vii
Freeband Broadband Photonic implementations . . . . . . . . .

Future work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
71
71
Bibliography
75
A List of Acronyms
77
B BPON Churning function
81
viii
Contents
Preface
This thesis is the result of my Master assignment at the Telecommunication Engineering group at the University of Twente. During this period I had the possibility to focus
on a part of the telecommunication world which is in an active development.
Hereby I would like to thank some people who made it possible for me to write this
thesis and finalize my study. At first I would like to thank my supervisors Wim van
Etten, Chris Roeloffzen and Rajeev Roy for their support, suggestions and feedback.
Furthermore I would like to thank my friends who have given me their supported. My
special thanks are going to my parents for their support and the given opportunity to
complete my study. And at last but not least I would like to thank Jonny Barelds for
his support during this period.
Christiaan Boomsma
Enschede,
May 2006.
ix
Preface
Chapter 1
Optical communication
1.1
Optical networks
To transmit data from one point to another, some signal path is needed between those
points. To create such path a medium is needed to transfer the data. The choice of
this medium depends on the requirements and available infrastructure. Examples of
media which can be used are air, copper or optical fibers. With these media, radio
networks, electrical networks and optical networks can be created.
In this thesis optical networks will be discussed. For an optical network three components are very important namely lasers, detectors and fibers. The detectors and lasers
are combined into a transceiver which is capable of converting an electrical signal to
optical and vice versa.
As in electrical networks, optical networks are built with switching and routing equipment as well. With this switching and routing equipment optical networks can be
configured in different ways, two examples are a passive or an active configuration.
Active networks are built with routers and switches which have their own power supply. While in passive networks the routers and switches dont have external power
supplies. The standards which will be discussed in Chapter 2 define such Passive
Optical Networks (PONs).
Optical networks are categorized into several types. Figure 1.1 on page 2 shows three
structures which are used as an illustration in standards of the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) [1], [2] and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) [3].
Chapter 1. Optical communication
FTTHome
Fiber
ONT
FTTBuilding/Curb
OLT
ONU
Fiber
Copper
NT
FTTCabinet
Fiber
ONU
Copper
NT
WAN
Home network
Access network
SNI
SNI = Service Network Interface
UNI = User Network Interface
ONT = Optical Network Termination

ONU = Optical Network Unit
UNI
NT = Network Termination
WAN = Wide Area Network
Figure 1.1: Optical network architecture
Depending on the infrastructure between Provider and User the configurations are
called:
Fiber To The Home (FTTH)
Fiber To The Building (FTTB)
Fiber To The Curb (FTTC)
Fiber To The Cabinet (FTTCab)
In Figure 1.1 several components are shown. The access-point to the network is called
a Service Node Interface (SNI) at the provider side and a User Network Interface
(UNI) at the user side. The SNI to the network consists of an Optical Line Termination (OLT) which is the optical interface to the network. The optical fiber is a
physical link between SNI and UNI and is called the Optical Distribution Network
(ODN). The termination point at the UNI can be an Optical Network Termination
(ONT) or Network Termination (NT). If a NT is used at the UNI, somewhere else in
the network an Optical Network Unit (ONU) has to be placed. This ONU has to terminate the optical fiber and convert the signal from optical to electrical. For an ONT
these two components, NT and ONU, are integrated into a single device. As shown in
Figure 1.1 each configuration has its own name, this will be explained on the next page.
1.1. Optical networks
FTTCab/FTTCurb/FTTB
In this configuration the fiber will end up in a cabinet or patch-box where the optical
signal is converted to an electrical signal by the ONU. The distance between ONU and
NT is bridged by copper cables. Examples are large office buildings, TV distribution
points in a residential area, telephone distribution or xDSL. In these configurations
fibers provide the high capacity bandwidth to an area where individual copper cables
will deliver the signal to the end-user.
FTTH
Fiber to the home implies that the fiber will enter the house where it is connected to
an ONU. The ONU converts the optical signal and presents a SNI to the end-user.
In this section the Passive Optical Network (PON) has been introduced. The
next section will discuss his type of network in more detail.
1.1.1
Passive Optical Network architectures
A PON consists of three main components as shown in Figure 1.2. A headend, represented by the OLT, and an ONU at the user-side. To connect them a single fiber from
the OLT is split by a passive splitter to serve each ONU.
Subscriber
ONU
Headend
Passive optical
splitter 1:N
ONU
OLT
OLT = Optical Line Termination

ONU = Optical Network Unit
ONU
Figure 1.2: PON network
The passive optical networks defined in ITU-T [1], [2] and IEEE [3] have an OLT
with an active transmitter. The ONU can have an active transmitter as well or reuse
the received power to transmit data. All equipment between OLT and ONU should be
passive and therefore have no external power supply.
1.1.2
Passive versus Active Optical Networks
In active networks management and collecting traffic statics from remote locations is
possible. Based on these statistics the network can be reconfigured from remote locations.
For passive configurations active monitoring is only possible at the SNI and UNI. The
path between SNI and UNI acts like a black box. Any modification, like rerouting, in
the network should be done on-side. Besides this problem, there are more differences
between Passive and Active networks, they are summarized now.
Dynamic links and management

In active optical networks the switching and routing hardware can create isolated
optical paths from source to destination. These are called Point-to-Point (P2P)
connections. Network operators can configure the manageable, or active, hardware to create a network with the required functionality. In the case of a passive
configuration as described in ITU-T [1], [2] and IEEE [3] the splitters have a static
configuration. As a result only at the termination points management is possible.
Topology
Active networks can be configured as P2P or Point-to-Multipoint (P2MP) networks at the physical level. The networks defined in ITU-T [1], [2] and IEEE
[3] can only be configured as a P2MP at the physical level. However with the
use of software a P2P topology can be emulated in a passive configuration. A
P2P network is most secure since each link is a physical link between two nodes.
In passive and active P2MP configurations all information is broadcasted in the
downstream1 direction to all users which can be a security problem.
Physical reach
The physical reach between headend and user is for active networks many times
more than passive networks. This is due the fact the active components can
act as an optical amplifier or repeater. In a passive network all power at the
headend has to be enough to serve at least 64 users as defined in ITU-T [1], [2]
and IEEE [3]. Another aspect which limits the maximum distance to 20 km is
the the ranging procedure, this will be discussed in chapter 3.5.1.
Upgrading a network
When networks or sub-networks are upgraded, an active network can partially
1
where downstream is from OLT to ONU
1.1. Optical networks
shut down depending on its configuration. For passive networks the whole network should be down to modify it.
Bandwidth usage
The usage of bandwidth in an active network differs from the use in passive networks. In active networks there are separate transmitters and receivers connected
by a physical link, therefore they can have their own wavelength and capacity.
Passive networks use a shared fiber between provider and splitter which has to
serve multiple users per wavelength.
This are some examples to deal with when designing and working with PONs. To
control the development of PONs some standards have been published. Each standard
describes several solutions and regulations which can help to design a network. Some
of these standards are still in development and are not finalized. The next chapter will
show the details about this.
Chapter 2
Standardization of Passive Optical

Networks
To realize the implementation of Passive Optical Networks (PONs) two organizations
are active to standardize this namely the IEEE and the ITU-T. Both organizations have
released standards which can be used for further development and implementation of
PONs. The ITU-T released a standard called Broadband Passive Optical Network
(BPON) (G.983.x 1998) and a standard called Gigabit-capable Passive Optical Network (GPON) (G.984.x 2003). The IEEE released a standard which is known as
Ethernet Passive Optical Network (EPON) (802.3ah 2004). Each standard describes
the functionality of the first two Open System Interconnection (OSI) network levels
as shown in Figure 2.1 on page 8. These levels have been defined by the OSI standardization organization in 1984. Many hardware and software developers are using
this OSI model to design communication systems in a modular way. Each level can be
implemented by one or multiple protocols. The two layers which are described by the
standards have the following functionality:
Layer 1 is the Physical layer which controls the transmission of raw bits over a
communication link [4].
Layer 2 is the Data link layer which decodes and encodes a packet into bits.
Besides this flow control and frame synchronization are controlled here. The
errors occurred at the physical level are handled here ass well.
Chapter 2. Standardization of Passive Optical Networks

Applications / User
Application Layer (7)

Presentation Layer (6)
Session Layer (5)
Transport Layer (4)
Network Layer (3)
Data Link Layer (2)
Physical Layer (1)
Electrical / Optical medium
Figure 2.1: OSI reference model
2.1
ITU-T G.983.x BPON
The ITU-T started around 1998 with a standard which is known as Broadband optical access systems based on Passive Optical Networks (BPON) [2]. This standard
is sometimes called ATM over Passive Optical Networks (APON). The difference
between APON and BPON are the extra overlay capabilities supported by BPON to
use video and other Broadband services.
The technology used in the BPON standard is called Asynchronous Transfer Mode
(ATM). ATM is implemented nowadays in large interconnecting networks and was
standardized in the ITU-T I.732 in 1996 [5]. A BPON system consists, like any other
PON network, of a single OLT with multiple ONUs connected to it. The G.983.x standard defines a block schema for the ONU, Figure 2.2, and OLT, Figure 2.3 on page 9.
The ONU shown in Figure 2.2 consists of several parts. An ODN interface which
represents the connection between the ODN and the user. The multiplex/demultiplex
function combines and separates so called Virtual Paths (VPs). The User port is
used to insert and extract individual ATM cells from connected customers into frames.
The power and Operation, Administration and Maintenance (OAM) block provide
the necessary electrical power and management facilities for the ONU.
2.1. ITU-T G.983.x BPON
Core shell
Service shell
Customer
User Port
Function
Customer and services

multiplex / demultiplex
function
Transission
function
ODN interface
function
ODN
Common shell
User Port
Function
Power
OAM
ODN = Optical Distribution Network

OAM = Operations, Administration and Maintenance
Figure 2.2: BPON ONU
The OLT as shown in Figure 2.3. It consists of a ODN interface where the optical
signal is translated to the electrical domain and vise versa. The Multiplexer/Demultiplexer
handles the different VP connections between the service port function and the ODN.
The Service Port Function extracts and inserts ATM cells into Synchronous Digital
Hierarchy (SDH) payload [6].
core shell
ODN
Service shell
ODN interface
function
Transission
function
ATM cross
connect
function
Service Port
Function
Core
Network
ODN interface
function
Power
OAM
Service Port
Function

OAM = Operations, Administration and Maintenance
Figure 2.3: BPON OLT
In the next section the properties of the physical layer will be discussed as they are
standardized by the ITU-T.
2.1.1
BPON physical layer properties
The BPON ODN interface is located at the physical layer in the OSI model. For this
level several items are standardized. Transmission speed, wavelength and modulation
are a few examples which are interesting to mention here. For a BPON system the
standardized transfer speeds are shown in Table 2.1 on page 10.
10
Table 2.1: BPON upstream and downstream speeds

Upstream
Downstream
155.520 Mbit/s 155.520 Mbit/s
155.520 Mbit/s 622.080 Mbit/s
622.080 Mbit/s 155.520 Mbit/s
622.080 Mbit/s 622.080 Mbit/s
These transfer speeds are adopted from the SDH frame speed [7]. A speed of
155.520 Mbit/s is equal to a, Synchronous Transfer Mode-1 (STM-1) frame and a
speed of 622.080 Mbit/s with a STM-4 frame. Each bit pattern is coded according to
Scrambled NRZ with low light intensity as ZERO and high light intensity as ONE.
The scrambling is done at a higher level and described in chapter 3.3.1. The process
of Non Return to Zero (NRZ) encoding is illustrated in Figure 2.4.
0 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 1
Figure 2.4: NRZ Encoding
This coded signal is modulated on a carrier, for a PON that will be a laser. The
ITU-T defines several wavelengths for the carriers used in a BPON systems. Each
wavelength is used for a different application as shown in Table 2.2.
Table 2.2: BPON wavelengths[7]

Band
Lower limit Upper limit
1.3m wavelength band
1260 nm
1360 nm
Intermediate wavelength band
1360 nm
1480 nm
Basic band
1480 nm
1500 nm
Enhancement band (I)
1539 nm
1565 nm
Enhancement band (II)
1550 nm
1560 nm
Future L band
N/A
N/A
An detailed description of the applications for each wavelength band in Table 2.2
is shown on the next page.
11
1.3m wavelength band

This band is used for the PON upstream data, where upstream is defined as data
travelling from ONU to OLT.
Intermediate wavelength band
For this wavelength range no application is defined yet, it can be used to implement additional services in the future.
Basic band
The Basic Band is used for the PON downstream data, where downstream is
defined as data travelling from OLT to ONU.
Enhancement band (I)
This band can be used for additional digital services.
Enhancement band (II)
This band is reserved to implement video distribution services.
Future L band
No purpose is assigned to this band, it can be used for additional services defined
by the ITU-T.
In the next section the lay-out of the data frames used by a BPON system will be
discussed, and how they are constructed at the higher level.
2.1.2
BPON frame format
The frames used in a BPON network are constructed from so called ATM cells and
Physical Layer Operation, Administration and Management (PLOAM) cells. The
ATM cells are used to transmit the user data. PLOAM cells are used to control the
data flow between the user and transmitter. BPON distinguishes two frame types, one
for downstream 1 and one for upstream 2 . Each frame has a fixed transmission time
of 152.67 s. Therefore a 155-Mbit/s downstream frame consists of 2968 bytes and a
622-Mbit/s of 11872 bytes. Figures 2.5 and 2.6 on the next page give an overview of
an entire frame for a 155-Mbit/s BPON system and a 622-Mbit/s BPON system.
1
2
Downstream is defined as data travelling from OLT to ONU

Upstream is defined as data travelling from ONU to OLT.
12

BPON 155Mbit/s
Downstream frame
PLOAM
1
Tframe = 56 cells of 53 bytes
ATM
cell 1
ATM PLOAM ATM

cell 27
2
cell 28
Upstream frame
ATM
cell 1
ATM
cell 54
Tframe = 53 cells per frame
ATM
cell 2
ATM
cell 3
ATM
cell 53
= 3 overhead bytes per cell
Figure 2.5: BPON downstream and upstream frame for 155-Mbit/s
BPON 622Mbit/s
Downstream frame
Tframe = 4 x 56 cell of 53 bytes
PLOAM
ATM
PLOAM
ATM
1
cell 1 to 27
2
cell 28 to 54
Upstream frame
ATM
cell 1
PLOAM ATM cell

8
190 to 216
Tframe = 4 x 53 cells per frame

ATM
cell 2
ATM
cell 3
ATM
cell 212
= 3 overhead bytes per cell
Figure 2.6: BPON downstream and upstream frame for 622-Mbit/s
As is shown in Figures 2.5 and 2.6 each PLOAM cell is followed by 27 ATM cells.
The ATM cells used in the frame have the standard ATM cell format as defined by the
ITU-T I.361 [8] and is shown in Figure 2.7 on page 13.
13
1 Byte
1 Byte
LSB
MSB
LSB
VPI
bit 14
VCI
bit 14
GFC
bit 58
VPI
bit 58
VCI
bit 18
VCI
PT CLP
bit 58
bit 24 bit 1
HEC
bit 18
PAYLOAD
48 bytes
MSB
VPI
bit 18
VPI
bit 58
53 Bytes
VCI
bit 14
VCI
bit 18
VCI
PT CLP
bit 58
bit 24 bit 1
HEC
bit 18
53 Bytes
PAYLOAD
48 bytes
UNI
NNI
GFC = Generic Flow Control

VPI = Virtual Path Identifier
VCI = Virtual Channel Identifier
HEC = Header Error Control

PT = Payload Type
CLP = Congestion Loss Priority
Figure 2.7: ATM cells used at SNI and NNI
The downstream PLOAM cell has a predefined structure. It consists like ATM
cells of a 5-byte header, and a 48-bytes payload section, together 53-bytes as shown in
Figure 2.8 on page. The header is used to identify the PLOAM cell, the ITU-T I.361
standard defines several PLOAM header patterns. For BPON the header pattern is
defined as shown in Figure 2.8. The payload section of a PLOAM is filled with the
PLOAM
Header
5bytes
Payload
48bytes
HEC
0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 1101 0111 0110
Figure 2.8: BPON PLOAM structure
operations, administration and management data. In Table 2.3 on the next page the
contents of a downstream frame is shown, each field is one byte long.
14
Table 2.3: PLOAM downstream Payload

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
IDENT
SYNC1
SYNC2
GRANT1
GRANT2
GRANT3
GRANT4
GRANT5
GRANT6
GRANT7
CRC
GRANT8
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
GRANT9
GRANT10
GRANT11
GRANT12
GRANT13
GRANT14
CRC
GRANT15
GRANT16
GRANT17
GRANT18
GRANT19
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
GRANT20
37
GRANT21
38
CRC
39
GRANT22
40
GRANT23
41
GRANT24
42
GRANT25
43
GRANT26
44
GRANT27
45
CRC
46
MESSAGE PON ID 47
MESSAGE ID
48
MESSAGE
MESSAGE
MESSAGE
MESSAGE
MESSAGE
MESSAGE
MESSAGE
MESSAGE
MESSAGE
MESSAGE
CRC
BIP
FIELD1
FIELD2
FIELD3
FIELD4
FIELD5
FIELD6
FIELD7
FIELD8
FIELD9
FIELD10
Each of these bytes have their own function. Below an explanation of each byte is
summarized.
IDENT
The IDENT byte is reserved for future use. The current standard defines a value
of 11111111 for the first PLOAM IDENT of a frame. The next PLOAM IDENT
fields in the frame will have a value of 0000000.
SYNC
The Sync fields SYNC1 and SYNC2 can be used for synchronization between OLT
and ONU. At the OLT a counter is incremented. For a 155 Mb/s connection the
counter is increased after each byte, for a 622 Mb/s connection the counter is
increased each 4 bytes. This counter is reset every 1 ms, as a result a 1 kHz
reference signal is generated. The value of this counter is taken right before
transmission of the first PLOAM cell of a frame and inserted in the SYNC fields.
At reception the ONU counter is locked on the OLT counter.
GRANT
To inform the ONU about an upstream time slots, it receives so called GRANTS.
For a 155 Mbit/s upstream frame there are 53 GRANTS needed, for the 622
Mbit/s connection this will be 212 grants. In a downstream frame there are
more PLOAM cells available than GRANTS needed to be send. To fill these
superfluous PLOAM GRANT fields so called idle grants are used. The different
GRANT types and their coding can be found in Table 2.4 on the next page.
15
Three codings are reserved, they are used to identify Ranging, Unassigned and
Idle GRANTS.
Table 2.4: GRANTS

Type
Data Grant
Encoding
Any value except
1111 1101
1111 1110
1111 1111
PLOAM Grant
Any value except

1111 1101
1111 1110
1111 1111
Divided slot grant
Any value except

1111 1101
1111 1110
1111 1111
Reserved Grants
Ranging Grant
Any value except

1111 1101
1111 1110
1111 1111
1111 1101
Unassigned Grant
Idle Grant
1111 1110
1111 1111
Definition
For indicating an upstream ONU-specific
data grant. The value of the data Grant
is assigned to the ONU during the ranging
protocol using the grant allocation message.
The ONU can send a data cell or an idle cell
if no data is available [2]
For indicating an upstream ONU-specific
PLOAM grant. The value of the PLOAM
grant is assigned to the ONU during the
ranging protocol using the grant allocation
message. The ONU always sends a PLOAM
cell in response to this grant. [2]
For indicating an upstream group of ONUspecific divided slot grant. The OLT
allocates the grant to a set of ONUs using the
Divided slot grant configuration message.
Each ONU of this set sends a mini slot.[2]
In a future session of this Recommendation
other grant types will be used for specific
data grants (e.g. to address a specific ONU
interface or QoS class) [2]
Used for the ranging process. The condition to
reach to this grand is described in the ranging
protocol. [2]
For indication an unused upstream slot. [2]
For decoupling the downstream PLOAM rate
from the upstream cell rate. These grants are
ignored by the ONU.[2]
CRC
Every group of grants and messages is concluded with a CRC check to protect
the integrity. For this CRC the polynomial g(x) = x8 + x2 + x + 1 is used.
MESSAGE
Every OAM message is transported by the MESSAGE FIELD in the PLOAM.
These MESSAGE FIELDS are protected by a CRC. The MESSAGE PON ID is
an address field which represents the source of the message. This is equal to the
PON ID assigned during the ranging procedure of the ONU. A PON ID will be
16
between 0 and 63 (0x00 to 0x3F), for broadcast messages a special ID is reserved

0x40.
The MESSAGE ID field represents the type of message being sent. The actual
message is stored in the MESSAGE FIELD bytes. Details are mentioned below.
Bit Interleaved Parity (BIP)

This field is used for monitoring the Bit Error Rate (BER) on the downstream
link. The method of BIP calculations are standardized in ITU-T G.707.
As shown in Table 2.3 on page 14 each group of seven Grants is concluded by the
same CRC as mentioned before. This is done to detect transmission errors. It was
mentioned earlier, besides transmission of upstream GRANTS, PLOAM cells can be
used to send MESSAGES. Those MESSAGES are so called OAM messages and are used
for management purposes, like alarms, threshold-crossing alerts triggered by events and
ranging message. Each message is constructed from several fields as shown in Table 2.5
and protected by the same CRC function as the GRANTS. The ONU handles those
messages if it is addressed to it. According to the type of message, the message is
processed. When an incorrect CRC is detected the message will be discarded.
Table 2.5: PLOAM downstream MESSAGE

MESSAGE PON ID It addresses a particular ONU. During the ranging protocol, the
ONUS is assigned a number, PON ID. This PON ID can be from
0 to 63, mapped in the range 0x00 to 0x3F . For a broadcast
to all ONUs, this field is set to 0x40 [2].
MESSAGE ID
Indicates the type of the message. [2]
MESSAGE FIELD
Contains the message. [2]
For the upstream frames an other format is used, this was already shown in Figures
2.5 and 2.6 on page 12. This frames are constructed from ATM cells and 3 overhead
bytes. Each ATM cell slot can contain an upstream PLOAM cell or a so called divided
slot rate. In case of a PLOAM cell the cell format will be according to Table 2.6 as
shown on page 17.
17
Table 2.6: PLOAM upstream Payload

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
IDENT
MESSAGE
MESSAGE
MESSAGE
MESSAGE
MESSAGE
MESSAGE
MESSAGE
MESSAGE
MESSAGE
MESSAGE
MESSAGE
PON ID
ID
FIELD1
FIELD2
FIELD3
FIELD4
FIELD5
FIELD6
FIELD7
FIELD8
FIELD9
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
MESSAGE FIELD10 25 LCF11

CRC
26 LCF12
LCF1
27 LCF13
LCF2
28 LCF14
LCF3
29 LCF15
LCF4
30 LCF16
LCF5
31 LCF17
LCF6
32 RXCF1
LCF7
33 RXCF2
LCF8
34 RXCF3
LCF9
35 RXCF4
LCF10
36 RXCF5
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
RXCF6
RXCF7
RXCF8
RXCF9
RXCF10
RXCF11
RXCF12
RXCF13
RXCF14
RXCF15
RXCF16
BIP
Each field for the upstream PLOAM cell has its own function. An explanation is
shown now.
IDENT
The IDENT field contains a value of 0x00 and is reserved for future use.
MESSAGE
The MESSAGE field is used to transfer all OAM related messages and is protected
by the same CRC as mentioned in the download section. The message format is
shown in Table 2.7 on page 18.
CRC
The CRC fields are the same as defined for the downstream.
LCF
The Laser Control Field (LCF) controls the optical power output and extinction ratio when the ONU sends data.
RXCF
The Receiver Control Field (RXCF) is used to set the correct threshold level
for the incoming signal.
BIP
This field is used for monitoring the BER (Bit Error Rate) on the downstream
link. The method of BIP calculations are standardized in ITU-T G.707.
18
Table 2.7: PLOAM downstream MESSAGE

MESSAGE PON ID It contains the PON ID of the sending ONU. However, the OLT knows
the implicit ONU ID since it generated a grant to it. If the contents
of this field does not match the possible expected values related
to this PON ID, the message is discarded.
MESSAGE ID
Indicates the message type [2]
MESSAGE FIELD
Contains the message. [2]
For the upstream data each ATM cell is preceded by some overhead bytes. It are 3
bytes in total, they are used for the purposes as mentioned in Table 2.8.
Guard time
Preamble
Delimiter
Table 2.8: Upstream overhead bytes

Provide enough distance between two consecutive cells or mini-slots
to avoid collisions[2]
Extract the phase of the arriving cell or mini-slot relative to the
local timing of the OLT, and/or acquire bit synchronization
and amplitude recovery [2]
A unique pattern indicating the start of the ATM cell or
mini-slot, which can be used to perform byte synchronization.[2]
An upstream slot can contain a so called divided slot. The standard is not very
clear about the implementation. The idea is to fill one upstream slot with a number
of mini slots coming from a set of ONUs. The OLT assigns one divided slot grant to
this set of ONUs for sending their mini slots. The format of the divided slot is shown
in Figure 2.9 on the next page. When a frame is filled with divided slot rates, multiple
ONUs can fill several cells with their data. In this case each ONU uses its own assigned
slot to send.
2.2. ITU-T G984.x GPON
19
Upstream frame
upstream slot
1
53
Divided slot
ONU x
ONU y
ONU z
minislot
minislot payload, 1 to 53 bytes

3 upstream
overhead bytes
Figure 2.9: BPON divided slot
2.2
ITU-T G984.x GPON
The ITU-T delivered a second standard which can be seen as a replacement for BPON.
This standard is the G.984.x series and is called Gigabit-capable Passive Optical
Network (GPON). It has an own defined packet format and can encapsulate several
protocols as shown in the next sections. A GPON system consists of the three basic
PON components, an OLT which is at the distribution side, an ONU at the user side
and in between an ODN.
2.2.1
GPON network architecture
The ITU-T defines the OLT for GPON systems in detail. It can be divided into three
parts, a PON Core shell, a Cross Connect shell and a Service shell. A functional
block diagram of an OLT is shown in Figure 2.10 on the next page. The PON Core
shell contains the so called ODN interface function [2] and the PON Transmission
Convergence (TC) function [6] as explained on the next page. The ODN interface
function is the physical interface to the fiber network. This represents the first Layer
in the OSI model as shown in Figure 2.1, and is specified in ITU-T G.984.2.
20

PON Core shell
ODN Interface
Function
Cross Connect shell
PON TC
Function
Service shell
Service
adaption
Cross
connect
Function
ODN Interface
Function
PON TC
Function
Service
adaption
Figure 2.10: OLT functional block diagram
An OLT can have multiple ODNs connected to it, each to serve one or more ONUs.
The PON TC function is responsible for the following tasks:
Framing
Media Access Control (MAC)
Operations Administration and Maintenance (OAM)
Dynamic Bandwidth Assignment (DBA)
Delineation of Protocol Data Units (PDUs) for the cross connect function, and
ONU management
These functions are covered by the second layer of the OSI model. The Cross Connect
shell is the connection between the PON core shell and the Service shell. This service
shell represents a client interface.
At the user side an ONU is installed, an schematic overview is shown in Figure 2.11 on
page 21. It has a PON Core shell and Cross Connect shell as well. The ODN interface
function for the ONU connects the ONU to the OLT. An ONU has standard one Optical
interface but can have an optional second one [6]. To convert the PON core shell
functions to the Service shell a Multiplexer (MUX) and Demultiplexer (DEMUX)
is used instead of a Cross Connect Shell. These MUX and DEMUX functions multiplex
and demultiplex several services to a single interface.
Between an ONU and OLT an ODN is used to connect them. An overview of
possible configurations and standards are given in [2]. The complete overview of the
GPON system from physical layer to Clients is given in Figure 2.12 on page 22. This
figure shows the Physical layer the TC layer and the Client interfaces. Each of these
components will be discussed in the next sections.
21
PON Core shell
ODN Interface
Function
Service shell
Service
adaption
PON TC
Function
Service MUX
and DEMUX
ODN Interface
Function
PON TC
Function
Service
adaption

MUX = MUltipleXer
DEMUX = DEMUltipleXer
Figure 2.11: ONU functional block diagram
2.2.2
GPON Physical Media Dependent (GPM) layer
In Figure 2.12 on the next page the lowest layer called GPON Physical Media Dependent layer (GPM) is shown. This layer is the interface to the optical fiber and is
represented by the ODN interface block in Figures 2.10 on page 20 and 2.11 on page
21. At this layer the conversion from electrical to optical signals and vice versa is done.
For the transmission line rate at this level the ITU-T has specified several speed modes
as shown in Table 2.9.
Table 2.9: GPON transfer speed

Upstream
Downstream
155.520 Mbit/s 1244.160 Mbit/s
622.080 Mbit/s 1244.160 Mbit/s
1244.160 Mbit/s 1244.160 Mbit/s
155.520 Mbit/s 2488.320 Mbit/s
622.080 Mbit/s 2488.320 Mbit/s
1244.160 Mbit/s 2488.320 Mbit/s
2488.320 Mbit/s 2488.320 Mbit/s
The information is transmitted on an optical carrier or laser. This laser will operate
at a certain wavelength. The defined ranges for upload and download transmission are
mentioned in Table 2.10 on page 22.
22
ATM Client
OMCI
GEM Client
PLOAM
GPON Transmission Convergence (GTC) layer
TC adaption
sublayer
OMCI adapter
ATM TC adapter
GEM TC adapter
DBA Control
GTC Framing sublayer
GPON Physical Media Dependent (GPM) layer

PLOAM = Physical Layer Operations, Adminitration and Maintenance
ATM = Asynchronous Transfer Mode
OMCI = ONU Management adn Control Channel
GEM = GPON Encapsulation Method
DBA = Dynamic Bandwidth Assignment
GTC = GPON Transmission Convergence
GPM = GPON Physical Media (Dependent)
Figure 2.12: GPON-Stack overview
Table 2.10: GPON wavelength bands

Upstream
Downstream
Single fiber 1260 - 1360 nm 1480 - 1500 nm
Dual fiber 1260 - 1360 nm 1260 - 1360 nm
This table defines two fiber configurations, the bidirectional (single fiber) or unidirectional (dual fiber) configuration. When a bidirectional transmission technique is
used multiple wavelengths are used on a fiber. To multiplex them on a single fiber
a technique Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) is used. For unidirectional
communication each direction has its own fiber with a single wavelength. The modulation technique used to code the data on the carrier is the so called NRZ coding.
The maximum logical reach between an OLT and an ONU is limited to 60 km. This
logical reach is a theoretical distance limited by the implementation and hardware
specifications. If multiple ONUs are connected to an OLT a difference in reach exists
between OLT to ONU-x and OLT to ONU-y. This reach is called the differential logical
reach and may not exceed 20 km due the maximum ranging window as explained in
chapter 3.5.2. The split ratio is standardized to 1:64, the TC layer supports up to
23
1:128 for future use. This ratio is limited by the output power of the OLT transmitter
and path loss, the total amount of power is divided by all connected users. To ensure
enough power for each user, a certain maximum is specified. Above the physical layer
the data packets are coded and decoded. The layer responsible for this is the GPON
Transmission Convergence (GTC) layer as shown in Figure 2.12.
2.2.3
GPON Transmission Convergence (GTC) layer
The GTC layer is used for Media Access Control (MAC). With this MAC the access
of multiple users to a shared medium is controlled. For GPON this upstream access is
realized by using so called pointers. Such pointer is called a Transmission Container
(T-CONT). Each T-CONT gives an ONU permission to send its data to the OLT
during a given period. This technique supports also the categorization of data types in
virtual queues. For this queueing model there are five types of T-CONTs, T-CONT1 TCONT5 each with an own priority. Depending on QoS factors and user requirements
these different T-CONTs can be assigned to an ONU. Details about the implementation
of this technique can be found in the ITU-T G.984.4 [9]. The basics on T-CONTs are
discussed on page 27.
In Figure 2.12 on page 22 the GPON Transmission Convergence (GTC) framing
layer was shown. This layer is responsible for multiplexing and demultiplexing data
streams. This layer creates the frame headers and maintains internal routing. In the
GTC layer the GPON specific datagrams are handled. This GTC layer can be divided
into two sub-layers, the so called GTC framing sublayer and TC adaption sublayer.
The Framing sublayer constructs GPON frames from data and extracts frames into
individual data packages. To do this the Framing sublayer communicates to a PLOAM
client and the TC adaption sublayer. This layer provides an ATM TC Client, GPON
Encapsulation Method (GEM) TC adapter and Dynamic Bandwidth Assignment
(DBA) control interface. To explain what these are and simplify the functions and
relations between the GTC Framing sublayer and TC Adaption sublayer the protocol
stack can be divided into a so called Control and Management plane (C/M) and
User data plane (U-plane). Figure 2.13 on the next page gives an overview of the
functional blocks.
The C/M plane is as its name reveals responsible for the Control and Management of
an ONU. At the GTC framing sublayer the different parts of a frame are demultiplexed
and processed. If there are embedded OAM packages in the frame they will be processed
immediately. These packets are used for control information which is urgent, this
can be bandwidth granting, key switching and dynamic bandwidth assignment. This
data is located in the Frame header, as will be explained later on. The PLOAM
messages are not processed at this level but forwarded to a PLOAM interface. Those
24
PLOAM messages contain management information which cant be transfered by OAM

messages. Each ONU has a so called ONU Management Control Interface (OMCI),
this is a separate control layer for ONU specific configuration. The C/M plane forwards
this information to a OMCI interface used by other layers. The port ID-filter is used
for multiplex purposes of data which have to be sent over GEM. For ATM data the so
called Virtual Path / Virtual Channel Identifier (VPI/VCI) is used to direct the dataflow over ATM. At the U-plane user-data is forwarded to the ATM and GEM client.
OMCI
PLOAM
ATM service
GEM service
OMCI adapter
ATM Client
GEM Client
VPI/VCI
filter
PortID and PTI

filter
VPI/VCI
filter
PortID
filter
TC Adaption sublayer
TC Adaption sublayer
ATM TC adapter
ATM TC
adapter
GEM TC adapter
GEM TC
adapter
PLOAM
partition
AllocID
filter
AllocID
filter
ATM
partition
GEM
partition

AllocID
filter
Frame
header
Multiplexing based on frame location
PLOAM
partition
ATM partition
AllocID
filter
Embedded OAM
GEM partition
frame
header
Multiplexing based on frame location
Figure 2.13: U and C/M plane
To identify different data paths so called VPIs are used to identify the ATM traffic. For
GEM data a PORT-ID and PTI value will be used, this is explained later on. To filter
incoming traffic so called Alloc-ID values are used. They are unique numbers assigned
by the OLT and attached to each data frame. Only frames with a valid Alloc-ID will
be processed.
GPON is capable of running in three modes called ATM, GEM and Dual. The mode
in which an OLT or ONU is running can be selected by the PON TC. ONUs and OLTs
can communicate with each other while running in different modes as defined by the
ITU-T [10], however not every combination is allowed. Table 2.11 on the next page
gives an overview of the allowed configurations.
25
Table 2.11: GPON OLT and ONU modes
GEM
ONU Dual
ATM
2.2.4
OLT
GEM Dual ATM
X
X
N/A
X
X
X
N/A
X
X
GTC Downstream
Besides the responsibility for MAC control, the GTC handles the coding and decoding
of the GPON frames. The downstream GPON frames have a format as shown in Figure
2.14. The frame consists of a header and a payload section. The header is called the
Physical Control Block downstream (PCBd). A payload section contains the actual
data which has to be transfered. The PCBd is filled with overhead to control and
inform the ONU.
125 s
PCBd
Payload
"Pure" ATM cells TDM & Data Fragments

Section
over GEM section
Figure 2.14: GPON downstream frame
Each frame is 125 s long, as a result the amount of bits that can be transfered by
a frame depends on the transfer speed. An overview of the total amount of bytes that
can be transfered by a single frame is shown in Table 2.12. This are the transmission
speeds as they are defined at this moment by the ITU-T [6].
Table 2.12: GPON Downstream Frame length

Data rate
Length
1.24416 Gbit/s 19440 bytes
2.48832 Gbit/s 38880 bytes
26
The PCBd header contains several fields which are shown in figure 2.15. A detailed
overview of each field will follow now.
PCBd
Payload
pSync
Ident
4bytes 4bytes
PLOAMd
13bytes
BIP
PLend PLend US BW Map
1byte 4bytes 4bytes N*8bytes
Figure 2.15: PCBd overview
Physical synchronization (Psync)

This field is 4-bytes long and contains a predefined, or static, pattern. It is us
ed by the ONU to synchronize on the incoming bitstream. The static pattern as
defined by the ITU-T is equal to 0xB6AB31E0
Ident
An Ident field contains 4-bytes which are divided into two one-bit fields and a
30-bit field as shown in Figure 2.16. The MSB bit is used to inform the ONU
if the data is FEC encoded, details are discussed in 3.3.2. The second single bit
field is a reserved bit and not used at this moment. The remaining 30 bits are
the Super-frame Counter. This counter keeps track of every transmitted frame
and is increased each next frame.
Ident
4bytes
FEC Ind
1bit
Reserved
1bit
Superframe Counter
30bit
Figure 2.16: Ident Field overview
27
BIP
A BIP field is an 8-bit value which represents the bit-interleaved parity of all
bytes transmitted since the last BIP. The BIP algorithm is standardized by the
ITU-T G.707 [7].
PLOAMd
This is the field that contains so called PLOAM messages with a length of 13
bytes. They have the same format as the PLOAMu messages, although the actual
messages are different. More details about the format are shown at the upstream
section on page 30.
Plend
This field is called the Payload Length downstream field as shown in Figure
2.17. The field consists of two partitions, one is called the BWMap Length
(Blen) field which gives an indication of the length of the bandwidth map. This
field is 12 bits long, as a result the number of allocation ids that may be granted
in frame is limited to 4095 (212 1).
The ATM Partition Length (Alen) is a 12 bits fields and as for the Blen field
can allocate a maximum of 4095 ATM cells. This amount of ATM cells per frame
is sufficient for data rates of 10 Gbit/s and up. The length of an ATM payload
partition in a frame is then 53 times Alen. A CRC-8 field is inserted to detect
transmission errors. It is calculated by the polynomial g(x) = x8 + x2 + x + 1 as
defined by the ITU-T [11].
PLend
4bytes
Blen
BW Map Length
12bit
Alen
ATM Partition Length
12bit
CRC
8bit
Figure 2.17: Plen Field overview
US BWmap Fields
The Bandwidth map (BWmap) contains the fields which describe the access
slots for an ONU. An access field consists of 8-bytes, called a T-CONT, which
on their part have an own format. Figure 2.18 show the detailed field format.
28
Allocation ID Field
The (Alloc-ID) has 12-bits and specifies for what access path the T-CONT
is assigned. The lowest 254 allocation IDs are used to address the ONU.
During the ranging or activation procedure the first Alloc-ID given to the
ONU should be in this range. The next Alloc-ID should be taken from those
above 255. An Alloc-ID of 254 is used to discover unknown ONUs, a value
of 255 is the default unassigned id.
US BW Map
N*8 bytes
Access 1
8 bytes
Access 2
8 bytes
AllocID
12 bits
Flags
12 bits
Access N
8 bytes
SStart SStop
2 bytes 2 bytes
CRC
1 byte
Figure 2.18: US BW MAP overview
Flags
The Flags field is a register of 12-bits from which 5 bits are used as an indication how the allocation shall be used. The used bits and there function
are summarized now.
bit-11 (MSB) Send power levelling sequence (PLSu), when this bit is
set (1) the ONU shall send its PLSu information during this allocation.
If the bit is not set (0) the ONU will not send the PLSu information in
this allocation.
bit-10 Send PLOAMu if this bit is set (1) the ONU shall send its
upstream PLOAM information during this allocation. When it is not
set (0) the ONU will not send the PLOAMu information.
Bit 9 Use FEC, if set (1) the ONU shall compute and insert FEC
parity fields during this allocation.
both 8 and 7 Send DBRu (mode),
00 Do not send DBRu at all
01 Send the mode 0 DBRu (two bytes)
10 Send the mode 1 DBRu (three bytes)
29
11 Send the mode 2 DBRu (five bytes)

The bits 6-0 are reserved for future use.
SStartTime
This field contains a 16 bit number that indicates the starting time of the allocation. Starting with 0 at the beginning of the upstream frame. This field
is 16 bit and therefor limits the size of the upstream frame to 65,536 bytes
(216 ). With this size an upstream of 2.488 Gb/s can be easily generated.
This timer excludes the overhead bits as defined in chapter 3.2.2.
SStopTime
This fields contains a 16 bits number which indicates the end time of the
allocation.
CRC
This field contains the CRC to find or correct errors during transmission.
The Payload section which contains the actual user data will be discussed in the next
sections.
2.2.5
GTC upstream
For GPON upstream data the ITU-T defined an other frame format. It contains a
header and payload section like a downstream frame as illustrated in Figure 2.19.
PLOu
PLOAMu
PLSu
DBRu
Payload
Figure 2.19: GPON upstream frame
This frame is created from several sub-frames with a payload attached to it. The
first field is the Physical layer overhead Upstream (PLOu) as shown in Figure 2.20.
PLOu
Preamble
a bytes
Delimiter
b bytes
BIP
1byte
ONUID
1byte
Ind
1byte
Figure 2.20: Physical layer overhead Upstream (PLOu)
30
The first two fields are filled with a so called Preamble and Delimiter bytes. Details
are discussed in chapter 3.2.2. A BIP field of 1 byte which contains a BIP value like in
the downstream header. The BIP is calculated over all the bits excluding the preamble
and delimiter. The ONU-ID field contains the unique ONU-ID of the sending ONU, if
an ONU has no ONU-ID yet, the field will have the value 255. The last field is called
the Ind Field. This 1 byte field is used to send a real time ONU status report to the
OLT. Table 2.13 shows how the status messages are coded. The PLOAM Upstream
Table 2.13: Ind Messages
Bit position
7 (MSB)
6
5
4
3
2
1
0 (LSB)
Function
Urgent PLOAMu waiting (1 = PLOAM waiting, 0 = no PLOAMs waiting)
FEC status (1 = FEC ON, 0 = FEC OFF)
RDI status (1 = Defect, 0 = OK)
Traffic waiting in type 2 T-CONTs
Reserved
(PLOAMu) field is the second field in the header. It is the same format as the PLOAMd
messages. The PLOAM messages are constructed as shown in Figure 2.21.
PLOAMu
ONUID
1byte
Msg ID
1byte
Message
10bytes
CRC
1byte
Figure 2.21: PLOAMu
This PLOAM message is the same as the PLOAMd they are constructed from 4
fields. The ONU-ID field is used to identify a specific ONU. For broadcast messages
this field is set to 0xFF. A MESSAGE-ID field is used to indicate the type of message
is encapsulated in the payload section. Several types are available and can be found in
ITU-T G.984.3 [10]. The DATA field contains the actual message. The last field is a
CRC value to protect the PLOAM field from transmission errors.
The Power Levelling Sequence Upstream (PLSu) field in the upstream frame contains 120 bytes and controls the power level of the laser and is used for measurements.
31
It is used during the ONU activation process. When requested by the OLT it can be
transmitted at any time.
The Dynamic Bandwidth Report Upstream (DBRu) field is constructed from a Dynamic Bandwidth Assignment (DBA) field which can be 1, 2 or 4 bytes and a 1 byte
CRC.
DBRu
DBA
1, 2, 4
bytes
CRC
1byte
Figure 2.22: DBRu
GPON has three types of DBA reporting which is used to inform the OLT about the
amount of data waiting in the several T-CONT queues. DBA reporting is optional for
ONUs, while OLTs should always support this functionality. In case an ONU doesnt
support this, it can use the functionality provided by the OLT. The three options of
reporting are:
Status indications in the PLOu field
Piggy-back reports in the DBRu
Whole ONU reports in the DBA payload
The status indications are transfered by the PLOu as mentioned previous in Table
2.13. This simple reports give an overview of the amount of traffic waiting at a certain
ONU. A Piggy-back report is transfered by the DBRu field. There are three types of
reports defined: 0, 1 or 2. If an ONU supports Piggy-back reports it should support
reports of type 0, reports of type 1 and 2 are optional. These reports are used to inform
the OLT about the amount of data waiting at the ONU. A report 0 is a very basic
status report, reports 1 and 2 are more detailed status reports. For a Whole ONU
reports a special allocation is made by the OLT in the payload section of the frame.
How this DBA report is mapped in the payload section is shown in Figure 2.24 on page
32. An ONU is free to report only the information which is important according to the
ONU and therefore the DBA report may vary in size.
In the next section the payload field of an upstream frame will be discussed. The
possible data that can be transfered and how this data is mapped is shown.
32
2.2.6
GTC upstream payload mapping
The Payload section of an upstream frame can carry three types of data as defined by
the ITU-T. These data types are ATM-cells, GEM frames or DBA reports. ATM cells
have the frame format as defined by the ITU-T I.361 [8] and were already shown in
Figure 2.7 on page 13. These ATM cells are filled at the higher level and send by the
ATM interface of the ONU. Here the ATM cells are mapped into the payload section
as shown in Figure 2.23. Each cell claims 53 bytes of payload, if there is more space
available then a multiple of 53 bytes the remaining bytes are padded.
PLOu
ATM Cell
PLOAMu
DBRu
ATM Cell
Payload
ATM Cell
ATM Cell
ATM Cell
Pad if
needed
Figure 2.23: ATM upload
The DBA reports discussed in the previous section are mapped to the payload
as shown in Figure 2.24 GPON introduces a new frame format for data encapsulation
PLOu
PLOAMu
DBRu
Payload
Pad if
needed
DBA Report
Figure 2.24: DBA report
called GPON Encapsulation Method (GEM). GEM packets consist of a GEM header
and Payload section. Like the ATM cells the GEM packets are filled at a higher level
and send to the ONU via the GEM interface. When the GEM packets are used, a
payload as shown in Figure 2.25 is created.
PLOu
PLOAMu
GEM
GEM
Frame Fragment
Header
Header
DBRu
Payload
Full Frame
GEM
Frame Fragment
Header
Figure 2.25: GEM upload frames
33
Each GEM packet is constructed from a header with a payload section. The contents
of the header is shown in Figure 2.26.
PLI
Port ID
PTI
HEC
12Bits 12Bits 3Bits 13Bits
Freament Payload
L Bytes
Figure 2.26: GEM header

The header consists of a Payload Length Indicator (PLI) used to inform about
the Payload Length L. It is used to synchronize and detect the next frame. The PLI
is a 12-bits field, as a result 4095 bytes is the maximum fragment size. The second
field Port ID provides a unique traffic identifier on the PON. A Payload Type
Indicator (PTI) field is used to identify the contents of the Payload. Table 2.14 shows
the different options. A Header Error Control (HEC) field is used to protect the
header for errors. This HEC is constructed from a BCH(39,12,2) code and a single
parity bit.
PIT code
000
001
010
011
100
101
110
111
Table 2.14: GEM PTI codes

Meaning
User data fragment, Not the end of a frame
User data fragment, End of a frame
Reserved
Reserved
GEM OAM, Not the end of a frame
GEM OAM, End of a frame
Reserved
Reserved
In case there is no data present to transmit, so called GEM idle frames are used.
They consist of zeros and are used to keep the transmitter and receiver synchronized.
The data payload can be of a random length, therefore fragmentation is needed. The
PTI header informs if a fragment is the end of a frame. In case of time sensitive data
special fragmentation functions are used. For example, urgent data frames are always
placed in front of low priority data frames.
2.2.7
GEM data mapping
The GEM frames are sent by using the GEM interface on an ONU. Like ATM cells
they have to be filled with data in advance. Since the GEM frames are GPON specific
34
the ITU-T specified some mapping scenarios in their standard [10]. The mapping of
TDM data and Ethernet data is discussed. The mapping of data into GEM frames is
not done at the ONU itself but should be done at a higher level.
TDM over GEM

TDM payload is encapsulated as shown in Figure 2.27. The PLI field indicates the
amount of TDM data which is carried by the payload field. To adapt the incoming
rate to the GEM client a so called TDM source adaption process should be created.
The incoming data is stored into an Ingress-buffer. Every frame period (125 s) the
multiplex function will read the queue and put parts of its contents in a GEM payload
section.
PLI
PortID
5 Bytes
Ingress
TDM
Service
TDM Octet
PTI
Ingress
HEC
TDM
Data
GEM Payload
TDM (variable size)
Figure 2.27: TDM over GEM
Ethernet over GEM

For Ethernet frames a mapping scheme is specified as well. During this mapping process
the Ethernet frame is stripped from its Preamble and Start of Frame Delimiter, a total
of 8 bytes. If an extension is used at the end of a frame this is stripped as well. The
remaining MAC frame is then loaded into the GEM payload section. This process is
illustrated in Figure 2.28 on the next page.
2.3. EPON IEEE 802.3ah
35
PLI
PortID
5 Bytes
7 Octets
Preamble
1 Octet
Start of Frame Delimiter
6 Octets
Destination Address
6 Octets
Source Address
2 Octets
Length/Type
PTI
CRC
GEM Payload
MAC ClientData
461500 Octets
PAD
4 Octets
Frame Check Sequence

Extension
Ethernet frame
GEM frame
Figure 2.28: Ethernet over GEM
2.3
EPON IEEE 802.3ah
A third standard for PON networks is delivered by the IEEE. It is published as Ethernet over Passive Optical Networks (EPON 802.3ah) [3]. This standard is the most
recent standard published. The IEEE 802.3ah is an extension to the 802.3 Ethernet
standard. The 802.3ah standard describes different standards for several types of fiber
networks. For the PON networks there are two standards available, the 1000BASEPX10 and 1000BASE-PX20. The number 10 and 20 refer to the maximum distance
(km) between sender and receiver. The next sections will discuss the details of these
two variations and how they should be used.
2.3.1
EPON stack
The EPON standard is an extension to the 802.3 Ethernet stack as defined by the IEEE
[12]. The first version of this standard was delivered in 1983. The Ethernet protocol
can be used in combination with different mediums. The first versions were suitable
for coax cables, in the years that followed extensions for Unshielded Twisted Pair
(UTP) and fiber optics were introduced. Ethernet has a layered architecture with a
specific task for each layer. As a result the the global stack properties are always the
same, independent of the medium used at that moment.
36
However there is one huge modification applied to the original stack due to the topology
criteria of PONs. The previous releases of the 802.3 standard used a Point-to-Point
(P2P) topology where PONs require a Point-to-Multi-Point (P2MP) topology. The
new EPON stack with an adaption for P2MP is shown in Figure 2.29. Here a MultiPoint-MAC-Control (MPMC) layer is added.
LAN
CSMA/CD
Layers
Higher Layers
LAN = Local Area Network
LLCLogical Link Control or
other MAC Client
MAC = Media Access Control

CSMA/CD = Carrier Sense Multiple Access / Collision Detection
OAM (optional)
GMII = Gigabit Media Indipendent Interface
MPMCMultiPoint MAC Control
PCS = Physical Coding Sublayer

PMA = Physical Medium Attatchment
OSI reference model
MAC Media Access Control

PMD = Physical Medium Dependent
Network
Reconciliation
MDI = Medium Dependent Interface
Data Link
GMII
Physical
PCS
PMA
PMD
MDI
PON MEDIUM
Figure 2.29: EPON stack
2.3.2
EPON layers
This section will describe the different layers of the EPON stack as shown in Figure 2.29 and their function for the EPON protocol. The IEEE uses the OSI model
in their design. As a result the layers can be categorized according to this model.
The Logical Link Control layer (LLC), Medium Access Control layer (MAC) and
Multi-Point-MAC-Control (MPMC) are part of the data link layer. The Reconciliation (RS), Physical-Coding-Sub-layer (PCS), Physical-Medium-Attachment layer
(PMA), Physical-Medium-Dependent layer (PMD) are part of the Physical layer.
The Gigabit-Medium-Independent-Interface (GMII) and Medium-Dependent-Interface
(MDI) are two interfaces which are standardized and are access points for the other
layers.
The protocol stack is implemented in the ONU and OLT, where for the OLT the implementation is different from that for the ONU. A PON fiber enters the system at the
lowest level, for EPON this layer is represented by the MDI. This is a standardized
connection point for the fiber and acts as an interface for the higher electrical circuit.
37
At the level of the optical fiber there are some physical characteristics specified. Examples are maximum distance and transmission line speed. The standards 1000Base-PX10
and 1000Base-PX20 are divided into a D and U section, which refers to the Downstream and Upstream. As in ITU-T standards the downstream is from OLT to ONU
and upstream from ONU to OLT. Table 2.15 shows their characteristics. For both
1000Base-PX10 and 1000Base-PX20. For both standards the split-ratio is defined as
1:16 [12], however in current experimental implementations a ratio of 1:32 is used and
therefore should be possible as well. It is not officially standardized by the IEEE
Table 2.15: Physical EPON properties
Name
1000BASE-PX10-D
1000BASE-PX10-U
1000BASE-PX20-D
1000BASE-PX20-U
Location
OLT
ONU
OLT
ONU
Rate
(Mb/s)
Nominal
Reach (km)
Medium
1000
10
One single-mode fiber PON
1000
20
One single-mode fiber PON
The layers above the MDI are used in the adaption and conversion process. These
layers are specific designed to convert the physical medium to a standardized interface, the GMII. The layers responsible for this are, the Physical-Medium-Dependent
layer(PMD), Physical-Medium-Attachment layer (PMA) and Physical-Coding-Sublayer (PCS).
The PMD layer controls the actual modulation of the data on the carrier which is
a laser for PON networks. Each direction, upstream and downstream, uses its own
wavelength. The wavelengths specified in 802.3ah are shown in Table 2.16. At the
PMD layer data from the PMA layer is modulated on the carrier. The demodulated
data from the received carrier is forwarded to the PMA layer.
Table 2.16: Physical properties PMD
1000BASE- 1000BASE- 1000BASE- 1000BASEDescription
PX-10U
PX-10D
PX-20U
PX-20D
Nominal transmit wavelength
1310 nm
1490 nm
1310 nm
1490 nm
Transmit direction
Upstream Downstream Upstream Downstream
Range
0.5 m - 10 km
0.5 m - 20 km
At the PMA layer takes care of serialization / deserialization of code-groups for

transmission and reception. During this process the clock signal is retrieved from the
38
incoming data which is 8B/10B coded. The PCS layer which lays above the PMA
decodes this 8B/10B data from the PMA into standard-bytes or octets which are forwarded to the GMII.
Any received octets from the GMII are encoded to 8B/10B coding. During this 8B/10B
encoding and decoding each octet is converted to a 10-bit value. The goal of this process is to ensure there are not to many zeros ore ones in one byte. A 10-bit code group
should contain four ones and six zeros, four zeros and six ones, or five ones and five
zeros. With these amount of ones and zeros in a frame the so called DC-balance is
maintained. The transition between zero and one provide the clock recovery circuit
of enough input pulses to retrieve a reliable clock signal. A side effect of this coding
mechanism is an increase of bandwidth of 25%. An detailed description of this coding
technique can be found in a publication by IBM [13].
The layers PMD PMA and PCS are medium dependent and are presented to the higher
layers by the GMII to make them medium independent. This GMII is a standard interface, in theory any physical layer with a GMII can be attached. This standard
interface is translated by the reconciliation layer and then presented to the MAC layer.
As mentioned before EPON uses P2MP in stead of P2P connections. For EPON systems the standard MAC layer is reused and an extra layer, the so called Multi-Point
MAC Control is placed on top which represents this functionality. The MAC layer
is responsible for framing, addressing, error detection and access control. Both OLT
and ONU have such a layer, but their behavior is not the same. At the ONU side a
single instance of this layer is created. At an OLT multiple instances are created, each
instance is related to a connected ONU. For broadcast messages at the OLT side one
special MAC is instantiated, all data sent to this MAC is broadcasted to all connected
ONUs. This is called the Single Copy Broadcast (SCB). The MPCP layer can handle multiple underlying MAC instances. An example of the configuration is shown in
Figure 2.30 on page 39.
On top of this MPCP layer an optional Operation, Administration and Maintenance (OAM) client can be placed for management purposes. Each MAC instance is
identified by a so called Logical Link IDentifier (LLID). Based on their LLID data
packages are routed to the corresponding MAC client. Each ONU and OLT tags their
frames with a certain LLID, the ONU will process this frame if the LLID matches or
otherwise discard it. At the ONU an individual MAC instance will do the same. How
this LLID is transmitted is shown on page 43. The actual EPON intelligence is located
in the MPCP. This MPCP at the OLT side is responsible for Dynamic Bandwidth
Allocation (DBA), by reserving upstream slots and assign them to an ONU. Congestion reports from ONUs helps to allocate the bandwidth in a PON network. The
MPCP can be extended in the future with extra functions. An ONU can have multiple
LLIDs, each LLID represents a message queue. The control messages for ONU and
39
OLT
ONU
LAN
CSMA/CD
Layers
LAN
CSMA/CD
Layers
Higher Layers
Higher Layers
MAC
Client
MAC
Client
MAC
Client
MAC Client
OAM
(optional)
OAM
(optional)
OAM
(optional)
OAM (optional)

MAC
MAC

MAC Media Access Control
MAC
Reconciliation
Reconciliation
GMII
GMII
PCS
PCS
PMA
PMA
PMD
PMD
MDI
MDI
PON MEDIUM
Figure 2.30: EPON Multimac
OLT consist of so called Report and GATE messages, like PLOAM cells for GPON.
Report messages are upstream messages from the ONU, GATE are downstream messages from the OLT. The OLT sends GATE messages to give the ONU access to the
medium. The Report messages are send by the ONU to inform the OLT about its local
status. The communication between MCPCs is done with so called MPCPDU frames.
This is the basic frame with several instances for other purposes. These message types
are explained in the next section.
2.3.3
EPON frame format
For an EPON system two frames are important. The so called data frames needed to
transport the user data and the so called control frames to configure the EPON system.
Access to the P2MP network is arranged by the MPCP. This MPCP communicates and
is configured by MPCPDU frames. These frames are constructed from the standard
IEEE 802.3 MAC-CONTROL frames. A MPCPDU is shown in Figure 2.31 on the
next page. These control packages are filtered at the MPCP layer and not forwarded
to the higher layers. The control frames are identified by a certain Opcode in the
40

Octets
Destination Address
Source Address
Length/Type = 8808 2
Opcode
Timestamp
Data/Reserved/Pad
40
FCS
Figure 2.31: MPMC Control frame
Opcode field which is 2 bytes long. The available opcodes are shown below. Details
about this messages are discussed next.
Gate MPCPDU = 0x00-02
This is the message is sent from a OLT to the ONU to assign a time slot. A
maximum of four grants can be inserted in a single gate message. This message
can also be used as a keep alive between OLT and ONU, in that case the grants
contain zeros.
Report MPCPDU = 0x00-03
The Report message is sent from ONU to OLT and can be used to inform the OLT
about upstream requirements, monitor link health and calculate the Round-Trip
Time (RTT). The RTT is an indication of the time needed for a packet to travel
from source to destination and back. Reports can be requested by the OLT by
sending an Gate message to the ONU.
REGISTER REQ MPCPDU = 0x00-04
The Register message is sent during initialization of a network. An ONU sends
this message to a network to notify OLTs it wants to be registered.
REGISTER MPCPDU = 0x00-05
An OLT which received a REGISTER REQ message sends this message back to
the ONU. It contains further information about the network needed to operate
correctly.
41
REGISTER ACK MPCPDU = 0x00-06

If the ONU accepts the Register MPCPDU it confirms this by sending a REGISTER ACK message to the OLT. From now on the ONU is part of the network
and connected to a certain OLT.
The GATE and REPORT messages are generated from the frame as shown in Figure
2.32 and have a total length of 64 bytes. A GATE MPCPDU consists of the standard
Octets
Octets
Destination Address
Destination Address
Source Address
Source Address
Opcode = 0002
Opcode = 0002
Timestamp
Timestamp
Number of
Grants/Flags
Number of
queue sets
Grant #1 Start time
0/4
Report bitmap
Grant #1 Length
0/2
Queue #0 Report
0/2
Grant #2 Start time
0/4
Queue #1 Report
0/2
Grant #2 Length
0/2
Queue #2 Report
0/2
Grant #3 Start time
0/4
Queue #3 Report
0/2
Grant #3 Length
0/2
Queue #4 Report
0/2
Grant #4 Start time
0/4
Queue #5 Report
0/2
Grant #4 Length
0/2
Queue #6 Report
0/2
Sync Time
0/2
Queue #7 Report
0/2
Pad/Reserved
FCS
1339
4
Pad/Reserved
FCS
GATE MPCPDU
REPORT MPCPDU
OLT ONU
ONU OLT
Repeated n times as
indicated by
"Number of queue sets"
039
4
Figure 2.32: A GATE and REPORT MPCPDU
MAC fields and the following fields. A Grants/Flags field which is an 8 bit register
which is used to inform the ONU. The values of the Grants/Flag register and their
42
function are shown in Table 2.17. Each bit represents an action The GRANT #
Table 2.17: GATE MPCPDU Number of grants/Flags Field (1 Byte)
Bit
0-2
3
4
Flag Field
Values
Number of grants 0-4
Discovery
0 - Normal GATE
1 - Discovery GATE
Force Report
0 - No action required
Grant 1
1 - A REPORT frame should be issued at the corresponding
transmission opportunity indicated in GRANT 1
Force Report
Grant n
transmission opportunity indicated in GRANT n
Force Report
Grant 4
transmission opportunity indicated in GRANT 4
Start time field is used to inform the ONU when it is allowed to start transmitting
the data. A Grant Length field tells the ONU for how long it may transmit. The
Grant Length field value is inclusive the laser-on-Time, sync-time and laser-off-Time.
The SYncTime field is used to sync the time with OLT this is only during discovery
procedure, otherwise this field is not included. The REPORT MPCPDU is constructed
from the standard MAC fields and the following fields. A Number of Queue sets
fields is used to indicate the amount of requests in the Report message. There can
be multiple requests in a single Report message, the amount of requests is indicated
by the Number of queue sets. A Report bitmap contains information as shown in
Table 2.18.
43
Table 2.18: REPORT MPCPDU Report bitmap fields

Bit Flag Field Values
0
Queue 0
0- queue 0 report is not present
1-queue 0 report is present
1
Queue 1
0- queue 1 report is not present
... ...
...
7
Queue 7
Each Queue #n Report field represents the length of queue #n at time of REPORT generation. The Pad/Reserved field is filled with zeros to fill the unused space,
depending on the amount of report entries this can be 0 to 39. The Register MPCPDU,
Register REQ MPCPDU and Register ACK MPCPDU are used for ONU registration
purposes and discussed in chapter 3.5.3. For user data the standard MAC frame as
shown in Figure 2.33 is used. It can contain up to 1500 Octets of user data and can be
as large as 1526 Octets or Bytes.
7 Octets
Preamble
1 Octet
Start of Frame Delimiter
6 Octets
Destination Address
6 Octets
Source Address
2 Octets
Length/Type
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
0x55
0x55
SLD (0xD5)
0x55
0x55
LLID[15:8]
LLID[7:0]
CRC 8
MAC ClientData
461500 Octets
PAD
4 Octets Frame Check Sequence
Extension
Figure 2.33: MAC-frame

In standard Ethernet operation each Ethernet frame is transmitted with a so called
Preamble and Start of Frame Delimiter (SFD) in front of it as shown in Figure 2.33.
These fields consists of 8 bytes in total. They are used as a synchronization pattern
for the receiver. For EPON the standard MAC layer is extended with a so called
MPCP layer which allows multiple MAC instances at the OLT. Each of this instances
correspond to a connected ONU identified by a LLID. A virtual path is created between
44
OLT and ONU. These virtual paths require extra addressing parameters to route the
received data to the corresponding MAC instance. The previous introduced LLID
value is used for this, but needs to be encapsulated into the data frames. In EPON the
Preamble/SFD is used for this purpose as shown in Figure 2.33. A field called Start
of LLID delimiter (SLD), LLID and CRC8 are inserted into the preamble. The other
fields are left with their value 0x55. The CRC8 value is used to check any transmission
errors in the fields 3 to 7.
For downstream data an ONU discards each frame with an other LLID, only frames
with a valid LLID is forwarded to the higher layers. At the OLT each upstream frame
is processed by the MAC instance which has the same LLID as the frame.
Chapter 3
A comparison between standards

The previous chapters introduced the PONs and the ITU-T G983.x, ITU-T G.984.x
and IEEE 802.3ah standards which can be used to design such network. Each of
these standards have their advantages and disadvantages on how they suggest how
to implement certain functionality. This functionality is for the physical level, data
transmission level and user level. In this chapter some of these solutions suggested by
the standards are discussed in detail.
3.1
Possible network structures
The basic network structure for PONs as defined in the standards is relatively simple,
due to the fact that they consist of passive optical splitters and fibers only. Such PONs
can be extended with extra passive or active components like WDM devices and user
services like video distribution as is shown in this chapter.
For the networks discussed in this chapter the term PON might not always be applicable
for the whole network since they are a mixture of passive and active networks. Although
they give an illustration of the possible implementations of PONs. All these networks
are created around a PON network and extended with additional equipment. The
protocols, wavelengths, OLTs and ONUs are conform the specifications as defined by
the ITU-T series 983.x, 984.x and IEEE 802.3ah.
3.1.1
Network redundancy
Like every transmission network PONs arent fail safe. To include some mechanisms
for backup and redundancy purposes the basic network model can be extended. The
ITU-T includes some suggestions in its standards. To illustrate the basics behind
backup facilities, a simple PON network without any additional equipment is used.
The shown solutions can be implemented in any network since their backup strategy
45
46
Chapter 3. A comparison between standards
is not typically PON related.

When a network is equipped with a backup system, there should be a procedure which
decides when to switch between the working system and protection system. Such
procedure is called protection switching in the ITU-T standards. The decision when
to switch is made upon two possibilities, automatic switching or forced switching.
Automatic switching is used in the worst case scenario. It is triggered when the system
detects transmission problems, like loss of signal, a high Bit Error Rate (BER)
or complete loss of frames. Forced switching is activated on request, for example
temporary rerouting during maintenance of fibers or switches. The ITU-T specifies
these services for BPON and GPON as an optional functionality. The automatic or
forced switching is triggered by so called OAM messages as mentioned in Chapter 2.
For the implementation of backup facilities modifications to the basic network model
are required. Depending on the risks and costs of a system failure the modifications
can be applied. An expensive but general solution is shown in Figure 3.1 and more
detailed version in Figure 3.2 where the optical components in OLT, ONU and ODN
are duplicated.
OLT
UNI
LT
ONU
PON LT(1)
ODN (0)
PON LT(1)
MUX
SNI LT(1)
Switch
PON LT(0)
ODN(1)
PON LT = PON Line Terminal

SNI LT = Service Node Interface Line Terminal
UNI LT = User Node Interface Line Terminal
PON LT(0)
SNI LT(0)
MUX = Multiplexer
Figure 3.1: PON Full Duplex system

ONU #1
Double
N:2 optical splitter
PON LT(1)
PON LT(0)
OLT
PON LT(1)
PON LT(0)
ONU #N
PON LT(1)
PON LT(0)
Figure 3.2: PON Full Duplex system details
Service
node
3.1. Possible network structures
47
The solutions shown in Figure 3.1 and Figure 3.2 are expensive ones since each
component is needed twice. The backup facilities are however almost fail proof. Every
possible failure of optical transceivers and fibers can be solved.
To reduce costs there are less expensive solutions where only certain components are
duplicated. Figure 3.3 shows a layout where only the fiber between OLT and splitter
is doubled. Since this is the main link it reduces the risk of complete connection
loss when a fiber is damaged. ONU or OLT failure are not included in this solution.
To add some extra reliability to the option where the fiber is duplicated the whole
ONU #1
PON LT
OLT
PON LT
Spare fiber
ONU #N
PON LT
Figure 3.3: PON Duplex fiber system

optical unit of the OLT can be duplicated. This implementation protects against OLT
transceiver and fiber failure. At the user side ONU failure is still possible but has less
impact than an OLT failure. This solution is shown in Figure 3.4. The IEEE doesnt
ONU #N
PON LT
OLT
PON LT(0)
PON LT(1)
ONU #1
PON LT
Figure 3.4: GPON Duplex system

specify these backup solutions for their EPON networks. However, as EPON is a PON
based network as well, the solutions defined by the ITU-T should be usable as well.
Designers of PON networks are free to implement their own reliability options which
are not suggested into the ITU-T or IEEE standards.
48
3.1.2
Additional broadcast services
An advantage of the P2MP topology of a PON network is its broadcast function. To

reach multiple users a single broadcast at the OLT is enough. This uni-directional
functionality can be used to deliver broadcast services to the end user. Examples of
such broadcast services are television and video on demand. In the future more services
can be added. Although these services can use the Internet extra services like QoS are
needed to ensure a transmission without delays. An other option is to deliver these
services by a dedicated and controlled data channel.
In the ITU-T G.983.x BPON standard this channel is defined as the Enhancementband. It is divided over two frequency ranges. The so called Enhancement-band-1
uses the 1531 nm - 1565 nm range. The range from 1550 nm - 1560 nm is reserved
for Enhancement-band-2. The Enhancement-band-1 is used for several additional
services, which should be implemented by the designer. Enhancement-band-2 is especially defined for video-distribution and can be used bi-directionally as well. Since
Enhancement-band-2 is part of Enhancement-band-1 it is not possible to use both
bands at the same time.
All additional services on Enhancement-band-1 and Enhancement-band-2 are transmitted on a separate wavelength. To add these extra wavelengths to the fiber a technique
called Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) is used. With WDM it is possible
to add additional wavelengths to a fiber and extract or drop these wavelengths at an
other place. This process is shown in Figure 3.5.
OLT
ONU
Basic Band
Basic Band
WDM
WDM
Passive splitter
Enhancement Band
Enhancement Band
WDM = Wavelength Division Multiplexing
Figure 3.5: Enhancement system

For GPON systems such Enhancement-band is not specified in detail. The ITUT G.984.x series refers to the ITU-T G.983.3 standard. The implementation of the
Enhancement-band-1 and Enhancement-band-2 is possible either additional specifications are needed for GPON systems. With nowadays WDM technique the implementation of broadcast services might not be a problem as long as the wavelengths dont
conflict with the GPON band-scheme.
The IEEE doesnt mention any implementations for additional services in their EPON
3.2. Physical Layer overhead
49
networks. Since the basics of a PON network are applicable here, a similar technique as
in GPON networks could be applied to EPON networks. The wavelengths used in the
Enhancement-bands dont conflict with the EPON bandplan, so an implementation of
this band should be possible.
3.1.3
Multiple standards on a single physical fiber
The different standards discussed for now, are standardized to use in a single network.
Is it possible to share a single fiber or network with multiple standards? One aspect
discussed here shows using multiple standards in a single fiber isnt possible.
The problem becomes clear when the used wavelengths are compared. In Table 2.2 on
page 10, Table 2.10 on page 22 and Table 2.16 on page 37 the different carrier wavelengths are mentioned. For BPON and GPON an upstream wavelength is specified
from 1260 nm to 1360 nm. The downstream wavelength uses the range from 1480 nm
to 1500 nm. This implies that transmitting BPON and GPON traffic simultaneously
over a single fiber isnt possible.
A BPON system would corrupt the data of a sending GPON system and vice versa.
For EPON systems the upstream and downstream wavelengths are defined as a center
wavelength with a several nm bandwidth. An upstream wavelength of 1310 nm and
downstream of 1490 nm for EPON lies within the band-plan for GPON and BPON.
As a result EPON traffic will corrupt GPON and BPON traffic and vice versa.
To overcome this problem additional fibers could be installed or lambda-converters can
be used. The standards dont mention the use of lambda-converters, but the designers
of a network are free to implement such equipment. With these lambda-converters a
logical P2P connection can be created from physical BPON, GPON and EPON segments. Each segment is connected by a network-gateway. This gateway has for example
a GPON network on one side and a EPON network at the other side. This solution
wont be very efficient since data has to be extracted from one frame and put into
another. Besides this problem the QoS within the network will be difficult to handle,
each segment should have its own management rules.
The general conclusion is clear, the three standards mentioned in this thesis are hard
to combine on the physical level without adding additional hardware or adding modifications to the standards.
3.2
Physical Layer overhead
The physical layer of an ONU and OLT is built with electrical components. Those
electrical circuits need time to stabilize, switch on and switch off, in particular the
transmitters or lasers. And even after they are switched on a receiver needs to syn-
50
chronize before they can start transmitting data. All those processes are part of the
physical layer and therefore often referred as Physical Layer Overhead (PLO).
The efficiency of a system and costs to produce it depends partly on the specifications
of these PLO parameters. Transceivers with tight timing constraints are more expensive to produce. Each standard defines certain parameters which are required. Other
parameters are left unspecified and should be filled in by the implementer. The next
section provides an overview of the parameters for an ONU and OLT as specified by
the standards.
3.2.1
BPON Timing constraints
For a BPON system these PLO parameters are defined for the upstream direction only.
Since the downstream data is a continuous series of data the transmitter will always
be on.
For upstream data send by the ONU the laser needs to be switched on and off. For
this process three bytes, 24 bits, are reserved. They are placed in front of each frame
as was shown in Figure 2.5 and Figure 2.6. The Table 2.8 gives the detailed bytes and
their function. The Guard time should be at least 4 bits, they provide a guard time
between consecutive cells. Any remaining bytes should be used for the Preamble
and Delimiter. The OLT informs the ONU how to divide the bits between those two
fields. They are assigned depending on the quality of the physical connection between
OLT and ONU.
3.2.2
GPON Timing constraints
In contrast to the BPON specifications, for GPON systems more specific timing criteria
are specified by the ITU-T. The GPON physical processes are represented by The
physical layer overhead (Tplo). The ITU-T G.984.2 standard specifies these time
constraints with a note that The exact division of the physical layer time to all these
functions is determined partly by constraints equations, and partly by implementation
choices [14].
The ITU-T divides the Tplo into three sub values, guard time (Tg ), preamble time
(Tp ) and delimiter time (Td ). During Tg a nominal power level equal to ZERO is
transmitted. For Tp a preamble pattern is transmitted, this pattern is used to generate
transitions. With this pattern the signal levels and clock signals can be recovered.
During the Td interval a pattern which has optimal autocorrelation properties[14] is
transmitted. With this pattern the OLT is able to find the beginning of an upstream
burst.
An other parameter Tu describes the so called peak-to-peak timing uncertainty. This
is an uncertainty which occurs due to influences by temperature and other external
3.2. Physical Layer overhead
51
factors.
A certain parameter can have a fixed value or it can be described by constraints. The
ITU-T defined the following equations for Tg
Tg > Ton + Tu
(3.1)
Tg > Tof f + Tu
(3.2)
From these equations it becomes clear that the Ton and Tof f bits are part of the
Tg . Details are explained by [15]. In Table 3.1 all the values are shown, including
the Preamble bits Tp and Td which are part of the PLOu field as shown in Figure
2.20. It should be noted that the values for Tp and Td are suggested values. Their
exact values depend on the hardware specifications. Table 3.1 shows for each value the
amount of overhead bits and the corresponding time.
Upstream
data rate
Mbit/s
155.520
622.08
1244.16
2488.32
Notes
Table 3.1: GPON overhead time

Tx
Tx
Total
Guard
Preamble
enable
disable
time
time
time
bits/ns
bits/ns
bits/ns
bits/ns
bits/ns
2/12.86 2/12.86
32/205.8
6/38.58
10/64.30
8/12.86 8/12.86
64/102.88 16/25.72 28/45.01
16/12.86 16/12.86 96/77.16
32/25.72 44/35.37
32/12.86 32/12.86 192/77.16 64/25.72 108/43.40
Max
Max
Mandatory
Min
Suggested
Delimiter
time
bits/ns
16/102.88
20/32.15
20/16.08
20/8.04
Suggested
Like BPON for GPON downstream no overhead values are specified by the ITU-T,
due the continuous data stream.
3.2.3
EPON Timing constraints
For EPON the physical layer overhead properties are defined in a slightly different way.
As illustrated in Figure 3.6 the overhead is divided in different components. They are,
Ton , Treceiver settling , Tcdr , Tcode group align and Tof f .
The Ton value is inserted to stabilize the transmitter and generate a stable signal.
The length of Ton is defined from the falling edge of the Tx Enable signal, and stops
when the optical signal reaches 15% of its steady state. The next stage is the Treceiver settling, this signal is needed to settle other requirements in the system. When
this is done a period for the Tcdr is inserted. The CDR Lock Time, during this interval
the receiver acquires a phase and frequency lock on the incoming data.
52
The IEEE specifies that the combined value of measured Tcdr and Tcodegroupalignment
shall not exceed 432 ns. If all physical processes are completed the transmitter is ready
to start transmitting the actual data. After the completion of the transmission the
laser turns off which requires a certain delay. Table 3.2 gives an overview of the standardized values.
Table 3.2: EPON overhead time

Ton
Tof f
Treceiver settling
Tcdr
Tcode group alignment
< 512 ns < 512 ns
400ns max
< 400ns
< 32ns
In Figure 3.6 a schematic overview of each physical process is shown.
Laser
Idles
Toff
Tcode_group_align
Upstream
data
Tcdr
Treceiver_setting
Ton
Tx_Enable
Data
Figure 3.6: EPON Time
3.3
Available security and data protection options
In an open network reliability and security are important issues. For PON networks
security is needed to guarantee privacy protection of user data. Reliability is needed to
ensure data transmission without errors and prevent damage due to hardware failure.
Privacy protection of user data is needed due to the P2MP network structure. Al the
data transmitted from the OLT can be seen by all connected ONUs as shown in Figure
1.2. For data transmitted by an ONU this isnt a problem, the data is only seen by
an OLT unless someone taps physically into the fiber. To prevent the data from being
read by unauthorized persons a protection system for downstream data is required,
protection of upstream data can be additional since the risks of tapping physically into
the fiber are very small.
For reliable and error free transmission, both upstream and downstream data have to be
protected. These protection mechanisms are implemented at the user sides only since
3.3. Available security and data protection options
53
the network in between is passive. Data packages can carry certain extra information
used by the OLT and ONU to verify the integrity of the received data. The next
sections will discuss the different mechanisms suggested by the standards.
3.3.1
BPON reliability and security
Reliability
For BPON in the ITU-T G.389.x standard two techniques are mentioned to ensure
reliable transmission of user data. As each BPON frame is constructed from PLOAM
and ATM cell types each with an own format. The PLOAM header and ATM cell
header use a so called Header Error Correction (HEC) value. This value is part of
the header as defined in ITU-T I.432.1 and shown in Figure 2.7 and Figure 2.8 on page
13. With this HEC value any single bit error in the header during transmission can be
corrected, multiple bit errors can only be detected.
For the payload sections of the PLOAM cell a CRC value is used as discussed in Chapter 2 to ensure the data is reliable. With this CRC value transmission error can be
detected. For the ATM payload section the standard implements no mechanism to
protect it. The user should use an appropriate mechanism at an higher level. This
protection of the transmitted data is needed because bit errors can occur during transmission.
To ensure a reliable transmission of data a detector should be able to detect the data as
it was send by the transmitter. At bit level a certain electrical signal represents a ZERO
and an higher electrical signal represents a ONE. For a detector these signals should be
interpreted in the right way, therefore these levels should be maintained. This is called
the DC balance which can be maintained by using an equal amount of ZEROs and
ONEs. Besides the detection of electrical levels the detection window is important as
well. A detector should therefore synchronize on an incoming data stream. Transitions
can be used by the detector to distinguish individual bits. A problem may occur when
series of ONEs or ZEROs are transmitted, these series dont contain any transitions.
As an result the detector may get out of sync.
To ensure a data stream holds to the requirements of DC-balance and sufficient transitions the data in a BPON system is scrambled. Scrambling provides no security but
ensures a reliable transmission. Both for downstream and upstream data the BPON
ITU-T G.983.x standard specifies how to implement this.
For the actual scrambling of the downstream data the standard refers to the Distributed cells scrambler method for cell based transport systems as defined by the
ITU-T [11]. This standard, ITU-T I.431.1, suggests for a cell-based system a so
called Distributed Sample Scrambler (DSS) of the 31st order. It uses a polynomial x31 + x28 + 1. This scrambler scrambles only the payload section of each cell.
54
For Upstream data a scrambler as shown in Figure 3.7 is used. The scrambling function uses a polynomial x9 + x4 + 1. Only the payload section of an upstream frame
or minislot is scrambled. To descramble the data the operation is repeated with the
scrambled data as input. The output will be the original data.
Input
data
+
D
Q
S
Q
S
Q
S
Q
S
Scrambled
data
Clock
(155.52 MHz)
Reset pulse
at start of frame
Figure 3.7: BPON scrambler for upstream
Downstream data security

Fortunately BPON implements security for downstream traffic in its network to prevent unauthorized users to read the data send by the OLT. Each payload section of an
ATM frame is coded by a process called churning. The header is left intact. This
churned data is then send and can only be read by users who are able to dechurn
this data. To churn and dechurn data a certain key is needed which is generated
by the ONU. During the initialization and registration process of an ONU the first key
is send to the OLT. To guarantee continuous security the key is updated at least once
a second. An OLT sends New churn key request messages to the ONU which will
send a new key to the OLT. Each key used for this process consists of 3 bytes and is
ordered in the bits like X1 - X8, P1 - P15 and P16.
In Figure 3.8 two black-boxes are shown which represent the process of churning
and dechurning. A scheme of the contents of each black box can be found in Appendix B.
K1 K2 P1
P12
Y1
Y2
K1 K2 P1
Z1
Z2
P12
Z1
Z2
Y1
Y2
Dechurn
Churn
Y8
Z8
OLT side
Y1~Y8 Data before Churning
Z1~Z8 Data after Churning
Z8
Y8
ONU side
Z1~Z8 Data before Dechurning
Y1~Y8 Data after Dechurning
Figure 3.8: Churning blocks

To operate correctly the black-boxes need input bits for the churning process, these
55
are K1, K2, P1 - P12. The values K1 and K2 are generated by the OLT and ONU
according to the rules as shown below.
K1 = (X1&P13&P14) + (X2&P13&P14) + (X7&P13&P14) + (X8&P13&P14)
K2 = (X3&P15&P16) + (X4&P15&P16) + (X5&P15&P16) + (X6&P15&P16)
Inside the black-boxes additional values are needed, K3 - K10, they are generated
with the input values K1, K2, P1 - P12.
K3 = (K1&P9) + (K2&P9) ; K4 = (K1&P9) + (K2&P9)
K5 = (K1&P10) + (K2&P10) ; K6 = (K1&P10) + (K2&P10)
K7 = (K1&P11) + (K2&P11) ; K8 = (K1&P11) + (K2&P11)
K9 = (K1&P12) + (K2&P12) ; K10 = (K1&P12) + (K2&P12)
Upstream data security

Data encryption for upstream data is not defined in the standard. If it is needed it
should be implemented at a higher level.
For the scrambling of the data a scrambling operation is defined by the standard. This
scrambler randomizes the transmitted data stream by modulo addition of a pseudorandom sequence. To descramble the data the process is repeated with an identical
locally generated pseudo-random sequence.
3.3.2
GPON reliability and security
Reliability
For a GPON system the security and reliability issues are specified in more detail.
GPON tries to take care of the so called eavesdropping threat which implies someone
re-programs his / her ONU in such way it can listen to all downstream data.
To prevent transmission errors in data, GPON applies the CRC algorithm to protect
the header. For GEM frames a HEC or CRC value is used to protect the header. Other
frames like ATM use their own system of header protection as discussed in the BPON
Section.
GPON supports a data protection mechanism for transmission errors called Forward
Error Correction (FEC) as was mentioned earlier in chapter 2. With FEC a code
word is generated based on the data. Using this codeword transmission errors can be
1
Operators used are: & for logical AND; + for logical OR; < signal > for logical NOT.
56
detected and corrected so transmission reliability is ensured. A result of using FEC is

that the link quality is increased, a higher bit rate is possible, a longer distance can be
used and more splits are possible.
The system used for the FEC encoding is the so called Reed-Solomon (Block based
FEC).
The function used is RS(255,239) which means the code word has a size of 255 bytes,
where 239 bytes are data and 16 are parity. These 16 parity bytes are extra overhead
bytes, as a result less user data can be send by the frame. In a 125 s frame constructed
from 255 byte codewords, the last code word is a so called Short-codeword. This is
needed when not a full block of 255 bytes is available. For a 2.488 Gb/s rate a 125
s frame contains 38.880 bytes. This are 152 blocks of 255 bytes and 120 remaining
bytes. With this 120 bytes 104 data bytes and a 16 byte parity can be transfered. The
generation of this parity requires a 239 data block, this is achieved by padding the 104
data bytes with zeros. After the parity is generated the padding is removed and the
remaining data + parity, 120 bytes, are inserted as a short-codeword. At the receiver
the padding is done before the parity is checked.
For GPON Downstream frames all the bits are used for the FEC coding. In GPON
Upstream frames the Delimiter and Preamble are excluded from FEC encoding, the
BIP field will be the first section of the coding.
Like in BPON systems the GPON data is scrambled as well. The scrambling for the
downstream frames is done by a frame-synchronous scrambling polynomial x7 +x6 +1.
The first Psync bits in the PCBd header are not scrambled, all remaining bits are
scrambled.
How the data is protected against third parties is shown next.
GPON Downstream data security
To protect the downstream data against third parties GPON uses an encryption
algorithm to encrypt the data. This algorithm is known as the Advanced Encryption
Standard (AES). The AES algorithm is used by the government of the United-States,
as an encryption method for their data. A detailed description of this algorithm can
be found in a publication from the National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST) [16].
AES encrypts blocks of 128 bits of data. For this encryption a key is needed which can
be 128, 196 or 256 bits long. AES encryption supports besides different key lengths
also different encryption modes. GPON uses the Counter (CTR) method with a 128
bits key. Keys of 192 or 256 bits are optional and not further defined in the ITU-T
standard. The AES-CTR method encrypts data as shown in Figure 3.9.

Counter value
AESKey
Data
57
Counter value
AESKey
Ciphertext
Ciphertext
Encryption
Data
Decryption
Figure 3.9: AES CTR mode
For the encryption process key and counter values are needed. This key needs to
be known by the OLT and ONU. During the initialization process of ONUs a first key
is exchanged. To update the key an OLT sends a key request message by using the
PLOAM channel. In response to this message the ONU will generate a new key and
send this to the OLT.
The counter value needed for the encryption process is generated by a synchronized
crypto-counter. Both OLT and ONU have such a counter, which should be synchronized so that the encrypted data from OLT can be decrypted by the ONU.
The counter is a 46 bits field, the 16 Least Significant Bits (LSB) are the so called
intra-frame counter. This counter is reset at the beginning of the downstream frame
which is the first byte of the PCBd. The intra-frame counter is incremented every four
bytes. The 30 Most Significant Bits (MSB) represent the inter-frame counter. This
counter is equal to the super-frame counter in an Ident field in the PCBd. This is
shown on page 26. This inter-frame counter is increased each frame.
This 46 bit block counter value is used as an input of the AES algorithm. To generate
the 128 bit input key the 46 bits are repeated three times. This results in a 138 bit
sequence from which the 10 MSB bits are discarded. The result is a 128 bit key for the
input of the AES algorithm.
When the user data consists of ATM cells only the 48 bytes payload section of an ATM
cell is encrypted. For a single cell 3 blocks of 128 bits or 16 bytes from the random
cipher is needed. These 3 blocks are XOR-ed to the data. In case of GEM payload
the same procedure is used for the GEM payload section. It can happen that a full
payload section with GEM frames is not equal to a multiple of 16 byte blocks. In that
case the last data block will use only the most significant part of the last cipher block.
The remaining bytes are discarded.
58
GPON Upstream data security

For upstream data no specific encryption methods are defined to secure data against
unauthorized parties. If security is required it should be implemented at an higher
level.
3.3.3
EPON reliability and security options
The IEEE has for their EPON standard no encryption defined. When encryption needs
to be implemented it should be done at higher levels.
For reliability some mechanisms are defined. Every transmitted frame is tagged with
a Frame Check Sequence FCS to detect transmission errors. This FCS is a 32-bit
Cyclic Redundancy Check CRC value. With this CRC value correction of transmission errors isnt possible. When an incorrect CRC is detected the whole frame will be
discarded.
To reduce transmission errors like in BPON and GPON the data needs to be constructed in such a way that there are enough ZEROs and ONEs for synchronization.
In stead of scrambling the data 8B/10B encoding is applied as mentioned on page 38.
An other purpose of 8B/10B encoding is maintaining the DC level as was discussed in
the GPON section.
3.4
Data encapsulation
Each standard provides a certain transport mechanism with its own protocols. At the
user level of a PON network, the user is able to send data over the network without
having to worry about the technique used at lower level. The function of a protocol
is to provide a container which can carry the data. A container can contain user
specific formatted data or data with a format required by the container. The protocols
discussed in this thesis support the following interfaces at user level.
3.4.1
BPON interfaces
A BPON network is an ATM based system. It presents an ATM interface to the user.
The user can use this interface to send ATM cells. To send data using ATM cells some
encapsulation methods for ATM are standardized, others should be implemented by
the user. An advantage of the use of ATM is the availability of network equipment for
networks which support ATM. Disadvantages are the lack of ATM support at the end
user. User equipment like PCs or telephones are almost never equipped with an ATM
interface. This requires extra conversion system at the ONU.
3.5. ONU and OLT initialization
3.4.2
59
GPON interfaces
In contrast to BPON GPON uses its own frame format and therefor is forced to convert
this to a common used protocol. A standard GPON ONU should present an ATM and
a GEM interface to the user. The ATM interface can be handled in the same way as
for a BPON ONU. The GEM interface can support any user data. In the standard [10]
the mapping of TDM and Ethernet data are defined. Since most user equipment at
home is equipped with an Ethernet port this interface can almost directly used without
conversion.
3.4.3
EPON interfaces
The EPON standard supports only an Ethernet interface which can be used to connect
any equipment with an Ethernet port. This interface can be used to transfer several
other data types and services. Conversions for this are defined in different standards.
3.5
ONU and OLT initialization
Like every network with different nodes, there is a moment when a new node wants
to access the network. To prevent already ongoing transmission are being corrupted a
procedure is needed to initialize new nodes (ONUs). The next section will discuss the
global initialization procedure for each standard.
3.5.1
BPON ONU initialization
The activation process is more or less the same as for GPON and therefore not discussed
here in detail.
3.5.2
GPON ONU initialization
In GPON systems each ONU has an unique serial number. This number identifies the
ONU at the OLT. An OLT can have serial numbers registered in advance, in that case
an ONU is already known to the OLT when it switches on. It is possible to add ONUs
which have not been registered jet, they are handled as an Unexpected ONU [10]. The
serial number then has to be detected in an other way.
An OLT can search for ONUs on the network with periodically polls, or start searching
when the OLT detects that previous working ONUs are missing. If automatic detection is not wished it can be forced by the operator. There are different stages in which
an ONU can be activated in a network. The basic activation method consists of the
following steps:
The OLT sends the first message to which an ONU may respond to. The ONU will
60
first adapt its physical parameters for transmission. When the serial number is not
known to the OLT it has to be discovered first. When the serial number is known the
OLT will assign an unique ONU-ID to the ONU. Now a basic communication channel
is established, to fully use it, the ONU and OLT negotiate about some physical parameters. A part of this procedure is the so called Ranging procedure. During this
ranging the distance between ONU and OLT is measured so the timing parameters can
be calculated. When the ONU adapts its parameters to the values suggested by the
OLT the ONU is registered and ready to be used. During this procedure the ONU has
different states, there are eight in total. A detailed state diagram with all states of the
ONU (8) can be found in the ITU-T document [10]
3.5.3
EPON ONU initialization
For EPON systems the activation should be something like for BPON and GPON systems. Like in GPON systems the OLT periodically makes Discovery Time Windows
during which off-line ONUs are given the opportunity to make themselves known to
the OLT. How long this Window is and how often requests are send is decided by
the designer. This so called discovery gate message with a start time and length is
broadcasted. During this window multiple ONUs are allowed to send their REGISTER REQ message to the OLT, indicating they want to be registered. To prevent
collisions between multiple ONUs a random mechanism is implemented, so that not
every ONU starts sending at the same time. After having received a REGISTER REQ
message the OLT will register the ONU and assign a LLID to it. To inform the ONU
the OLT sends a confirmation message, REGISTER ACK, back to the ONU. During
this process the physical parameters of the ONU are calculated by the OLT and send
to the ONU.
3.6
Effective rate / overhead
The efficiency of a PON depends on the amount of users and protocol efficiency. In
a P2MP system the bandwidth available at the main fiber from the OLT is splitted
amongst the users. This bandwidth usage is manageable at OLT and ONU level. An
ONU which doesnt receive grants from the OLT wont use any bandwidth. The OLT
is the control station to divide this bandwidth between each user.
An extra factor which limits the efficiency in a PON network is the overhead needed
to transmit data. For downstream and upstream data extra packets are inserted for
management and control purposes. Depending on the protocol these packets consume
more or less bandwidth.
3.6. Effective rate / overhead
61
The examples mentioned below are most worst case scenarios or based on simulations
by third parties.
3.6.1
BPON performance
A BPON system has two transfer speeds, 155.52 Mb/s and 622.08 Mb/s. From this
bandwidth a part is consumed by management and overhead data. For a 155.52 Mb/s
downstream frame constructed from 56 cells, 2 cells are PLOAM cells, the other 54
54
= 149.97Mb/s which is an
ATM cells. The effective data rate becomes 155.52 56
effective data rate of 96 %. For the 622.08 Mb/s connection the effective rate is 599.86
Mb/s, the effective data rate is equal.
For upstream data transmission of each 56 bytes transmitted, 53 are real data the other
3 are overhead. The resulting upstream rate will be 147.18 Mb/s and 588.75 Mb/s, an
effective rate of 95 %.
This bandwidth has to be divided amongst 32 users maximum. The maximum transfer
rate a user can have is a 18.7 Mb/s downstream and 18.3 Mb/s upstream
3.6.2
GPON performance
A 125 s downstream frame for 2.48832 Gb/s is 38880 bytes long. Part of this frame
is the header. This header is constructed of 30 bytes + the US BW Map field which
is N * 8 bytes, where N is the amount of bandwidth reports for the ONU. This was
discussed on page 28. This header therefore can be dynamic so the resulting payload
section is variable. Simulation results have shown an effective downstream value of 92
% [17]. This bandwidth has to be divided by a maximum of 64 users, 128 users are
supported in the future. For an upstream frame the contents is dynamic as well. To
analyze the performance of traffic further study and simulation is needed.
3.6.3
EPON performance
In EPON systems frames are transmitted as a Control frame and Data frames. The
effective data rate depends on how the bandwidth is divided between those. At the
user level 1 Gb/s is available, on the lower level due to 8B/10B encoding the data
rate at the fiber is 1.25 Gb/s. The maximum amount of users is limited to 32 at this
moment.
To calculate the performance simulation is needed here as well. Glen Kramer did such
study in his paper How efficient is EPON [18]. From his calculations he concludes
that the maximum downstream for a 1 Gb/s PtP link can be 915.2 Mb/s and the
upstream 898.8 Mb/s. This is an efficiency of 98.92 % resp. 97.08 %. These values are
62
based on a model[18] which makes an estimate of the average overhead and package
size.
Chapter 4
Implementations and
recommendations
4.1
Purposes of the Freeband Broadband Photonic project
One purpose of the Freeband Broadband Photonic project is to provide a high speed,
multiple services access point to the end-user. To implement such access point for the
user several techniques are available. One of this techniques is a PON as discussed in
the previous chapters.
For the Freeband project this network structure is suitable, mainly due to its broadcast
nature (P2MP) and possible P2P configurations. The previous chapters discussed three
standards which provide implementation options for PONs. The Freeband project could
partially use such networks to deliver the required services to the user. Although the
standards discussed show networks with a standardized design, these networks can be
modified to meet the user requirements. If any modifications are made, they should
not conflict with the standardized parameters. For the Freeband Broadband Photonic
project the requirements may not be fulfilled by a single standard. In that case certain
parts of the standards can be used, other parts need to be filled in by other standards
or complete new standard.
A disadvantage of not using the complete standard for the implementation may be
the incompatibility with existing equipment. When a network is designed according
to a standard, third parties are able to design their hardware for such networks in a
simple way and by reusing mass produced parts. When networks are partially designed
by standards and partially by user implementations the hardware should be designed
conform the customers specification, so it can be used in the network. This increases
the production price of the network equipment.
63
64
4.2
Chapter 4. Implementations and recommendations
Implementations from a userpoint of view
A user doesnt want to be bothered with technical details. Therefore the delivery of
different services to the user should be realized in a plug and play way. For simplicity
we will use the three most important services available nowadays. These are Internet,
telephony and television. A user should have some black-box with several interfaces
installed at home which provide Internet, telephony and television. At this moment
there are several Cable and ADSL providers which offer triple play services. An
advantage of optical networks can be a high bandwidth and less interference.
All those services have to be transmitted over a PON network. This requires not only
the available PON techniques but relies also on additional standards. An interface
for the user is constructed from an electrical circuit with connection point. The most
common used connection points are for Ethernet a RJ-45 plug, for Telephony a RJ-11
plug and for Television a Belling-Lee (Coax) connector. Each interface is driven by
an electrical circuit which will not be discussed here in detail. The transportation of
these services requires a certain format or protocol. A format supported by a PON
network is preferred, otherwise data conversion from one protocol to another protocol
needs to be implemented. The next section shows some protocols which could be used
to implement this.
4.3
Available service protocols
The Internet service can be realized using the existing Ethernet protocol. Almost
every PC is equipped with an Ethernet interface and additional network equipment is
available for home usage.
For a telephony service it is more complex, the service needs to transfer the voice data
over the network. Before this can be done the voice data needs to be digitized. This
digital voice data is encapsulated in a protocol. Two protocols often used nowadays to
transfer this voice are Voice over IP (VoIP) and Voice over ATM (VoATM). VoIP
is standardized by the ITU-T H.323 standard. This protocol relies on IP technology
which uses Ethernet as transport protocol. The other protocol VoATM uses ATM
frames to transmit the voice data. VoATM is standardized in ITU-T I.363.2. Which
of these protocols is used depends on the implementation choices.
A remarkable difference between the protocols is the amount of overhead for a frame.
An IP frame has an average overhead of 20 bytes while ATM uses 5 bytes for overhead.
IP frames are capable of transporting larger amounts of data per frame, however for
voice these frames cant be too large. Large IP voice frames would introduce too much
delay for voice data. Depending on the used codec a VoIP frame contains an average
of 20 to 160 bytes, while ATM frames always contain 53 bytes. Another drawback of
4.4. Implementation examples
65
VoIP is the possible congestion which can occur in Internet networks and the lack of
QoS. Since VoIP cant guarantee the voice packets to arrive in the correct order, data
streams can get mixed up. In the standards ATM frames dont rely on Ethernet or
IP frames, and therefore have their own virtual channel. This ATM channel can of
course be overloaded as well, but is more manageable.
A television service can be implemented using the so called Enhancement band as
discussed in Section 3.1.2. This band provides the television in a broadcast way like
the current CATV system. At the ONU this signal can be converted to an RF signal
or digital signal which can be send to the television.
4.4
Implementation examples
The system discussed in the previous sections can be implemented using a GPON or
EPON network. In the following subsections an example for such a system is shown.
BPON is not further discussed since this standard is more or less overruled by GPON.
4.4.1
An GPON example
When the ONU is implemented with GPON components a network as shown in Figure
4.1 on page 66 can be constructed. This network shows the three services as they are
available as backbone systems. A Cable Television (CATV) backbone, a Public
Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) backbone and a Wide Area Network (WAN)
backbone.
A CATV system uses the Enhancement band (3 ) and is therefore multiplexed in a
PON network at a certain point using a WDM multiplexer. The other services PSTN
and WAN are connected to the PON network using the OLT. This OLT has an interface
for this services and provides the headend for the PON network. This OLT signal (1
and 2 ) is multiplexed with the Enhancement band (3 ) by the same WDM device.
Each OLT can have multiple ONUs connected to it. Such ONU is constructed from a
WDM demultiplexer which separates the Enhancement band from the PON network.
This Enhancement band provides the Television service and is converted by an electrical
circuit to the standard interface.
The PON signal needs more processing by the GPON stack. GPON provides an ATM
and GEM interface as was shown in Figure 2.13. This ATM interface can be used for
the Telephony service. A VoATM service can use this interface to convert this ATM
channel to a RJ-11 interface. For the Internet service the GEM channel can be used. As
was discussed in Section 2.2.7 the conversion from Ethernet to GEM is standardized.
With this conversion the GEM channel can be represented as an Ethernet interface to
the user.
66

PC
ONU
CATV
1 0
OLT
1+ 2
PSTN
1+ 2+ 3
W
D
M
GEM
GEM to Ethernet
W
D
M
2 GPON
ATM
Ethernet
Telephony
VoATM
Optical to
Analog/Digital
Television
WAN
1 & 2 = GPON upstream and downstream

3 = Enhancementband
Figure 4.1: GPON example
4.4.2
An EPON example
The example shown for GPON can be implemented with the EPON protocol as well.
Each backbone network is similar to the GPON configuration. Although the Enhancement band is not specified for EPON it can be implemented like in GPON. The major
differences are found in the ONU. In contrast to GPON, EPON provides an Ethernet
interface which can directly be used for the user interface without conversion. For
Telephony a different choice is made to transport the voice packets. Since the Internet
is the only interface here the VoIP protocol is most usable here. For VoIP the encapsulation into Ethernet is simple, while for VoATM the encapsulation into Ethernet is
hard to realize. The Television signal is presented to the user in the same way as for
GPON. The complete overview of this configuration is shown in Figure 4.2.
PC
ONU
CATV
Ethernet
1 0
OLT
1+ 2
PSTN
1+ 2+ 3
W
D
M
Telephony
W
D
M
2 EPON
IP over Ethernet
Optical to
Analog/Digital
WAN
1 & 2 = EPON upstream and downstream

3 = Enhancementband
Figure 4.2: EPON example
VoIP
Television
4.5. Which standard to implement
4.5
67
Which standard to implement
To decide to use BPON, EPON or GPON in a new design is based upon different aspects. The previous chapters have shown the main characteristics of each standard and
their possibilities. BPON will be left out in this discussion, since the transfer speed
and interface types are completely overruled by GPON. The battle will be between
GPON and EPON.
4.5.1
Bandwidth and users
To create a network in a certain area the costs should be as low as possible and the
efficiency as high as possible. A neighborhood needs several OLTs, depending on the
amount of bandwidth required by the users and the amount of users. Where EPON
supports at this moment 32 users, GPON supports 64 and even 128 in the future. If the
available bandwidth has to be divided amongst the maximum possible users connected
to an OLT for EPON the effective rate will be 31.25 Mb/s. There are two options for
upgrading EPON, one is increasing the available bandwidth and the second option is
allowing more users to be connected simultaneously. Both upgrades are expected to
be happen in the future. The current available bandwidth of 31.25 Mb/s, for 32 users
each, is more than enough to serve an average household using telephone and Internet.
The TV distribution is not using this bandwidth since it is on a separate wavelength
outside the actual PON system.
For GPON the network bandwidth will be 38.88 Mb/s for 64 users or 19.44 Mb/s
for 128 users. A GPON network is scalable as well, in the future higher transmission
speeds and more users per ONU should be possible. The worst case bandwidth of 19.44
Mb/s is more than enough for an average user. The Television signal isnt included in
this bandwidth. With future upgrades of technology this bandwidth will increase even
more.
There are several manufacturers who produce equipment with specifications which are
experimental and not officially certified by IEEE or ITU-T. The available bandwidth
and users that can be connected now shouldnt be the deciding factor. But if a choice
has to be made upon this issue GPON would be preferable due to its higher bandwidth
and more users per OLT.
4.5.2
The mapping of services
An other factor which might be the deciding factor is the way services are mapped to the
PON network. For telephony a mapping has to be done according to both standards.
For EPON this is a mapping to VoIP, for GPON this is VoATM. Both protocols have
68
their own advantages and disadvantages as discussed before. Where VoIP is a more
commonly used technology and able to use the standard Ethernet protocol, VoATM
is a more specific technology but more reliable and uses less overhead. An advantage
of VoIP is the flexibility, a user can register with his or her account at a Session
Initiation Protocol (SIP) server and start making VoIP calls. A user can use this
account at any Internet connection, even on a mobile or fixed phone. For VoATM the
network structure needs to be designed according to specific requirements to establish
a connection. EPON provides support for both services without too many conversions.
GPON can use VoIP but needs the extra conversion to GEM frames.
Due to the popularity of the Internet and Ethernet protocol, many services used via the
Internet could be implemented at the ONU when their development is at an acceptable
level. This is a migration from the Internet to ONU where EPON would provide the
smoothest transition possibilities.
For the Internet EPON provides the simplest interface without any conversion. In
GPON networks Ethernet should be converted to GEM frames. Nowadays there are
even Telephone systems with an Ethernet interface on the marked which makes the
VoIP conversion in the ONU superfluous.For the simplicity and flexibility of the user
EPON provides the best service.
4.5.3
The physical devices
The proposals made in this Chapter might to be realized in a real circuit. The actual GPON and EPON circuits will be discussed here, all other circuits are neglected.
Electrical circuits have to be built with certain specifications. The most important
ones were mentioned in Section 3.2. The smaller the timing is for circuits to operate,
the more expensive is their manufacturing. EPON has in contrast to GPON relaxed
timing constraints. As a result of this relaxed specifications EPON devices should be
cheaper to manufacture.
This chapter has shown the problems and possibilities for the actual users and implementers. The next chapter will present an overall conclusion and recommendations.
Chapter 5
Conclusions and recommendations

5.1
General conclusions
This thesis was written to provide answers to the questions given below.
What are the differences between the BPON/GPON/EPON standards?
Are the BPON/GPON/EPON standards inter operable?
Which conversions are needed at the end user to make its private-network plugand-play with an optical WAN and which options are available?
What about the timing and synchronization issues of each protocol?
How can BPON/GPON/EPON implemented into the Freeband system?
The next sections will provide an answer to each question and make some recommendations to the project.
5.1.1
Differences between BPON, GPON and EPON
The differences between BPON, GPON and EPON can be found at different levels.
A BPON system is a good system but more or less replaced by the GPON standard.
All the user services provided by BPON can be found in the GPON system as well.
GPON is even more flexible since it provides not only an ATM service but also additional services like GEM with several possibilities for data encapsulation.
The EPON standard distinguishes its self from BPON and GPON by using the Ethernet stack, the service provided by EPON is therefore Ethernet. Like ATM or GEM,
Ethernet is capable of encapsulating other protocols.
Both BPON and GPON use the ATM protocol, where BPON actually uses it at the
network level and GPON only provides a service point for ATM. The network layer
of GPON uses its own frame format to transfer the data. For this moment GPON
69
70
Chapter 5. Conclusions and recommendations
has the fastest transmission speed followed by EPON. The transfer speeds for BPON
are outdated, while EPON and GPON might be upgraded to higher speed. Another
drawback of BPON is the lack of further development by the ITU-T, this is not very
active anymore since GPON is more or less a replacement.
5.1.2
Interoperability
In large networks it may be desired to use more than one standard to provide the best
solutions to different users. There are however problems when using more standards
in a single network. On the first place it isnt very efficient, a network needs equipment which meets the requirements of two or more standards. A second problem was
discussed earlier, the different band-plans of each standard conflicts with each other.
As a result the interoperability of the three standards here isnt possible without any
modification in the specified band-plan.
5.1.3
Plug-and-play options
Plug-and-play implies that existing equipment needs none or less modifications when it
is connected to new hardware. User equipment for telephony like IP-phones, Internet,
and even televisions have an Ethernet interfaces nowadays. Based on this information a
standard which supports Ethernet should be the best choice. Both GPON and EPON
provide an Ethernet service, GPON with some extra conversion and EPON without any
conversion. For a plug-and-play system EPON should be the easiest implementation.
5.1.4
Physical differences
On the physical level there are differences in the available data rates, and device timing requirements. The EPON standard specifies timing requirements which are more
relaxed compared to the GPON specifications. The GPON strict specifications make
the physical devices more expensive to produce.
For the available data rate GPON is the leading standard now. However a 10 Gb/s
Ethernet stack is currently available for an active optical network, it is just a matter of
time when EPON will adopt this stack. With easy to implement timing specifications
and a possible transfer speed of 10 Gb/s EPON is suitable for low cost high speed
PONs.
5.2. Recommendations
5.2
5.2.1
71
Recommendations
Freeband Broadband Photonic implementations
The Freeband Broadband Photonic project requires a PON based network to deliver
the most common services to the user. The hardware needed for these services is often
equipped with an Ethernet interface. From a user point of view an ONU with Ethernet
support should be most convenient. An implementation for this system which requires
less protocol conversion or encapsulation would be an EPON based system. Since a
lot of services are born in the Internet environment, the migration of these services to
a PON network using the same protocol has its advantages.
Although GPON has its advantages as well, it provides more direct service interfaces,
the question would be if an average user really needs those different services. As user
equipment is standardized to Ethernet, ATM support becomes superfluous. If ATM is
no must, extra conversions like Ethernet to GEM and vice versa are then overkill.
For the network operator the advantage is the relative cheap equipment needed for
EPON networks. A general recommendation to the Freeband project is to use an
EPON based PON.
5.2.2
Future work
Although the standards describe a more or less complete PON network based on EPON
there are still unsolved issues. For example what are the side effects when EPON migrates to 10 Gb/s. This high speed interface might be available for active optical
networks now, but is it suitable for PONs? Are the devices then still easy to manufacture? These questions can only be answered and analyzed when the standards are
available.
For the Freeband Broadband Photonic project an other question is unanswered, what
if more wavelengths are going to be used in a standard? Each standard describes a
fixed band-plan to use but can this bandplan extended with other wavelengths?
72
Chapter 5. Conclusions and recommendations
References
[1] ITU-T recommendation G.984.1,
Gigabit-capable Passive Optical Networks (GPON): General characteristics.,
International Telecommunication Union, March 2003.
Broadband optical access systems based on Passive Optical Networks (PON),
International Telecommunication Union, October 1998.
[3] IEEE recommendation 802.3ah
IEEE 802.3ah, Amendment to IEEE Std 802.3-2002,
IEEE Computer Society, June 2004.
[4] Larry L Peterson and Bruce S. Davie,
Computer Networks: A systems approach,
Morgan Kaufmann publishers, 2000, ISBN: 1558605770.
[5] ITU-T Recommendation I.732,
Functional characteristics of ATM equipment,
International Telecommunication Union, October 2000.
Broadbad opticalaccess systems based on Passive Optical Networks (PON),
[7] ITU-T recommendation G.707,
Network node interface for the synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH),
International Telecommunication Union, December 2003.
[8] ITU-T recommendation I.361,
B-ISDN ATM layer specification,
73
74
REFERENCES

Gigabit-capable Passive Optical Networks (GPON): ONT management and control
interface specification,
International Telecommunication Union, June 2004.
Gigabit-capable Passive Optical Networks (GPON): Transmission convergence
layer specification,
International Telecommunication Union, February 2004.
[11] ITU-T recommendation I.431.1,
B-ISDN user-network interface - Physical layer specification: General characteristics,
International Telecommunication Union, February 1999.
[12] IEEE recommendation 802.3,
Part 3: Carrier sense multiple access with collision detection (CSMA/CD) access
method and physical layer specifications,
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, March 2002.
[13] A. X. Widmer and P. A. Franaszek,
A DC-Balanced, Partitioned-Block, 8B/10B Transmission Code,
IBM Journal of Research and Development, Vol. 27, No. 5, September 1983, pages
440-451.
online: http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/rd/275/ibmrd2705D.pdf
Gigabit-capable Passive Optical Networks (GPON): Physical Media Dependent
(PMD) layer specification.,
[15] Frank Effenberger,
PON PDM Timing,
Ethernet in the First Mile Task Force, Presentation January 2003,
online: http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/802/3/efm/public/jan03/
optics/effenberger optics 1 0103.pdf
[16] Federal-Information-Processing-Standards-Publication-197,
Advanced Encryption Standard (AES),
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Noveber 2003,
online: http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/fips/fips197/fips-197.pdf
REFERENCES
75
[17] Dan Parson,

GPON vs. EPON Costs Comparison,
Lightwave journal, September 2005, online: http://www.broadlight.com/epresenter/media/documents
/GPON vs EPON Cost Comparison - BroadLight-June 2005.pdf
[18] Glen Kramer,
How efficient is EPON?,
Teknovus,
online: http://wwwcsif.cs.ucdavis.edu/kramer/papers/epon efficiency.pdf
76
REFERENCES
Appendix A
List of Acronyms
Alen
Alloc-ID
APON
ATM
BER
BIP
BPON
Blen
BWmap
CLP
CRC
DBA
DBRu
DEMUX
DSL
EPON
FEC
FTTB
FTTB/C
FTTC
FTTCab
FTTH
GEM
GMII
GPM
GPON
GTC
HEC
ATM (partition) length

Allocation Identifier
ATM over Passive Optical Networks
Asynchronous Transfer Mode
Bit Error Ratio
Bit Interleaved Parity
Broadband Passive Optical Networks
BWmap Length
Bandwidth Map
Congestion Loss Priority
Cyclic Redundancy Check
Dynamic Bandwidth Assignment
Dynamic Bandwidth Report upstream
Demultiplexer
Digital Subscriber Line
Ethernet Passive Optical Network
Forward Error Correction
Fiber to the Building
Fiber to the Building/Curb
Fiber to the Curb
Fiber to the Cabinet
Fiber to the Home
GPON Encapsulation Method
Gigabit-Medium-Independent-Interface
GPON Physical Media (Dependent)
Gigabit Passive Optical Network
GPON Transmission Convergence
Header Error Control
77
78
IEEE
ITU
ITU-T
LCF
LLC
LLID
LSB
MAC
MDI
MDU
MII
MPMC
MPCPDU
MSB
MUX
NRZ
NT
OAM
OAN
ODN
OLT
OMCI
ONT
ONU
OSI
P2MP
P2P
PCBd
PCS
PDU
Plend
PLI
PLOAM
PLOAMd
PLOAMu
PLOu
PLSu
PMA
PMD
Appendix A. List of Acronyms
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

International Telecommunication Union
ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector
Laser Control Field
Logical Link Control layer
Logical Link Identifier
Least Significant Bit
Media Access Control
Media-Dependent-Interface
Multi-Dwelling Unit
Media-Independent-Interface
Multi-Point-MAC-Control
Multi-Point-MAC-Control Protocol-Data-Unit
Most Significant Bit
Multiplexer
Non-Return-To-Zero
Network Termination
Operation, Administration and Maintenance
Optical Access Network
Optical Distribution Network
Optical Line Termination
ONU Management and Control Interface
Optical Network Termination
Optical Network Unit
Open System Interconnection
Point to Multi Point
Point to Point
Physical Control BLock downstream
Physical-COding-Sublayer
Protocol Data Unit
Physical Length downstream
Payload Length Indicator
Physical Layer Operations, Administration and Maintenance
PLOAM downstream
PLOAM upstream
Physical Layer Overhead upstream
Power Leveling Sequence upstream
Physical-Medium-Attatchment layer
Physical-Medium-Dependent layer
79
PON
Port-ID
Psync
PT
PTI
QoS
RS
RXCF
SCB
SDH
SNI
STM
TC
T-CONT
UNI
UTP
VCI
VoATM
VoIP
VP
VPI
WAN
WDM
Passive Optical Network

Port Identifier
Physical Synchronization
Payload Type
Payload Type Indicator
Quality of Service
Reconsiliation
Receiver COntrol Filed
Single Copy Broadcast
Synchronous Digital Hierarchy
Service Node Interface
Synchronous Transfer Mode
Transmission Convergence
Transmission Container
User Network Interface
Unschielded Twisted Pair
Virtual Channel Identifier
Voice over ATM
Voice over IP
Virtual Path
Virtual Path Identifier
Wide Area Network
Wavelength Division Multiplexing
80
Appendix A. List of Acronyms
Appendix B
BPON Churning function

K1 K2 P1
P12
Y1
Y2
K1 K2 P1
Z1
Z2
Z1
Z2
Y1
Y2
Dechurn
Churn
Y8
Z8
Z8
K1
P1
K3
K2
Y2
P3
K4
K2
Y8
K2
P2
Y1
K1
P12
Z1
Z1
Z2
Z2
K3
K1
P1
Y1
Y2
K2
P4
P2
P4
K6
K1
P3
K7
K5
Y3
Z3
Z3
Y3
Y4
Z4
Z4
Y4
K6
K1
K9
K2
P5
P6
K2
K7
Y6
P7
K8
P5
K8
Y5
K1
K1
P6
K2
Z5
Z5
Z6
Z6
Y5
Y6
K2
P8
K9
P8
K9
K1
P7
K8
Y7
Z7
Z7
Y7
Y8
Z8
Z8
Y8
K10
K10
Figure B.1: BPON Churning schema

81
82
Appendix B. BPON Churning function
List of Figures
1.1 Optical network architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.2 PON network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
2.5
2.6
2.7
2.8
2.9
2.10
2.11
2.12
2.13
2.14
2.15
2.16
2.17
2.18
2.19
2.20
2.21
2.22
2.23
2.24
2.25
2.26
2.27
2.28
OSI reference model . . . . . . . . . . . .

BPON ONU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
BPON OLT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
NRZ Encoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
BPON frame 155-MHz . . . . . . . . . . .
BPON frame 622-MHz . . . . . . . . . . .
ATM cells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
PLOAM structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
BPON divided slot . . . . . . . . . . . . .
OLT functional block diagram . . . . . . .
ONU functional block diagram . . . . . . .
GPON-Stack overview . . . . . . . . . . .
U and C/M plane . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
GPON downstream frame . . . . . . . . .
PCBd overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Ident Field overview . . . . . . . . . . . .
Plen Field overview . . . . . . . . . . . . .
US BW MAP overview . . . . . . . . . . .
GPON upstream frame . . . . . . . . . . .
Physical layer overhead Upstream (PLOu)
PLOAMu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
DBRu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
ATM upload . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
DBA report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
GEM upload frames . . . . . . . . . . . .
GEM header . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
TDM over GEM . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Ethernet over GEM . . . . . . . . . . . . .
83
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
2
3
8
9
9
10
12
12
13
13
19
20
21
22
24
25
26
26
27
28
29
29
30
31
32
32
32
33
34
35
84
LIST OF FIGURES
2.29
2.30
2.31
2.32
2.33
EPON stack . . . . . . . . . . . . .
EPON Multimac . . . . . . . . . .
MPMC Control frame . . . . . . .
A GATE and REPORT MPCPDU
MAC-frame . . . . . . . . . . . . .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
36
39
40
41
43
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5
3.6
3.7
3.8
3.9
PON Duplex system . . . . . .

PON Full Duplex system detail
PON Duplex fiber system . . .
GPON Duplex system . . . . .
Enhancement system . . . . . .
EPON Time . . . . . . . . . . .
BPON scrambler for upstream .
Churning blocks . . . . . . . . .
AES CTR mode . . . . . . . . .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
46
46
47
47
48
52
54
54
57
4.1
4.2
GPON example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
EPON example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
66
66
B.1 BPON Churning Schema . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
81
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
List of Tables
2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
2.5
2.6
2.7
2.8
2.9
2.10
2.11
2.12
2.13
2.14
2.15
2.16
2.17
2.18
BPON upstream and downstream speeds . . . . . . . . .

BPON wavelengths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
PLOAM downstream payload . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
BPON GRANTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
PLOAM downstream MESSAGE . . . . . . . . . . . . .
PLOAM upstream payload . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
PLOAM downstream MESSAGE . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Upstream overhead bytes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
GPON transfer speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
GPON wavelength bands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
GPON OLT and ONU modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
GPON Downstream Frame length . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Ind Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
GEM PTI codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Physical EPON properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Physical properties PMD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
GATE MPCPDU Number of grants/Flags Field (1 Byte)
REPORT MPCPDU Report bitmap fields . . . . . . . .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
10
10
14
15
16
17
18
18
21
22
25
25
30
33
37
37
42
43
3.1 GPON overhead time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3.2 EPON overhead time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
51
52
85
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Pon

Caricato da

Informazioni sul documento

Copyright

Formati disponibili

Condividi questo documento

Condividi o incorpora il documento

Opzioni di condivisione

Hai trovato utile questo documento?

Questo contenuto è inappropriato?

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

Pon

Caricato da

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

University of Twente

Department of Electrical Engineering

Ethernet over Passive Optical

2 Standardization of Passive Optical Networks

Physical Layer overhead . . . . . . . . . . . .

4 Implementations and recommendations

5 Conclusions and recommendations

Freeband Broadband Photonic implementations . . . . . . . . .

B BPON Churning function

Chapter 1. Optical communication

ONT = Optical Network Termination

Figure 1.1: Optical network architecture

1.1. Optical networks

Passive Optical Network architectures

OLT = Optical Line Termination

Figure 1.2: PON network

Chapter 1. Optical communication

Passive versus Active Optical Networks

Dynamic links and management

where downstream is from OLT to ONU

1.1. Optical networks

Chapter 1. Optical communication

Standardization of Passive Optical

Chapter 2. Standardization of Passive Optical Networks

Application Layer (7)

Electrical / Optical medium

Figure 2.1: OSI reference model

ITU-T G.983.x BPON

2.1. ITU-T G.983.x BPON

Customer and services

ODN = Optical Distribution Network

Figure 2.2: BPON ONU

ODN = Optical Distribution Network

Figure 2.3: BPON OLT

BPON physical layer properties

Chapter 2. Standardization of Passive Optical Networks

Table 2.1: BPON upstream and downstream speeds

Figure 2.4: NRZ Encoding

Table 2.2: BPON wavelengths[7]

2.1. ITU-T G.983.x BPON

1.3m wavelength band

BPON frame format

Downstream is defined as data travelling from OLT to ONU

Chapter 2. Standardization of Passive Optical Networks

Tframe = 56 cells of 53 bytes

ATM PLOAM ATM

Tframe = 53 cells per frame

= 3 overhead bytes per cell

Figure 2.5: BPON downstream and upstream frame for 155-Mbit/s

Tframe = 4 x 56 cell of 53 bytes

PLOAM ATM cell

Tframe = 4 x 53 cells per frame

= 3 overhead bytes per cell

Figure 2.6: BPON downstream and upstream frame for 622-Mbit/s

2.1. ITU-T G.983.x BPON

GFC = Generic Flow Control

HEC = Header Error Control

Figure 2.7: ATM cells used at SNI and NNI

Figure 2.8: BPON PLOAM structure

Chapter 2. Standardization of Passive Optical Networks

Table 2.3: PLOAM downstream Payload

2.1. ITU-T G.983.x BPON

Table 2.4: GRANTS

Any value except