Power, Cost and Reach Based Evaluation of Next Generation Passive Optical Networks Architectures

Evolution in passive optical access networks concentrate on increasing their capacity that can be in terms of the number of users served or the data rates served per user. Various techniques have been under consideration to achieve the same. Their names are first generation passive optical networks (PON), next generation-1 PON (NG-PON1), and next generation 2 PON (NG-PON2). However, none of them has proven to be the most efficient solution for every scenario (such as power, cost and reach efficiency). This calls for the evaluation of the existing PON architectures and provide an optimum solution. In this work, we evaluate the performance of Gigabit-capable PON (GPON), XG-PON, XLG-PON, wavelength division multiplexing PON (WDM-PON), and time and wavelength division multiplex PON (TWDM-PON) architectures in terms of their reach, cost and power consumption. On analyzing these architectures in OptSim software, we found that WDM-PON is an optimum solution for long reach and high data rate PON system if we neglect the cost constraint. Furthermore, for the cost effective solution, TWDM-PON fits best in terms of high data rate and low power consumption but provides lower reach in comparison to WDM-PON.