GPON and EPON Card Comparison for Fiberhome AN5516 Series OLT

Abstract

This topic introduces the PON access functions supported by AN5516 series OLT, and GPON and EPON Card Comparison.

EPON Access Function

Basic Concept 

EPON is a long-haul Ethernet access technology based on optical transmission networks. Compliant with IEEE 802.3ah, EPON uses the point-to-multipoint (P2MP) architecture and single-fiber WDM technology (the downlink central wavelength
being 1490 nm, and the uplink central wavelength being 1310 nm) to enable bidirectional transmission over a single fiber.

Application 

As a mature PON technology, EPON features low cost, high bandwidth, good scalability, compatibility with existing Ethernet, and easy management. Accordingly, EPON is widely applied to carrier networks

Advantages of EPON application

Low cost: The maintenance, extension and upgrading are easy with a low cost.

High bandwidth: Currently, EPON can provide symmetric bandwidth up to 1.25Gbit/s in uplink and downlink directions. With development of Ethernet technology, the bandwidth can be smoothly evolved to 10 Gbit/s.

Flexible bandwidth allocation and assured service quality: A sound system is provided to guarantee bandwidth allocation. Queue scheduling mechanisms including differentiated services (DiffServ), priority queue (PQ) / weighted fair queuing (WFQ), and weighted random early detection (WRED) are applied to bandwidth allocation to ensure quality of services for each subscriber.

GPON Access Function

Basic Concept

Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) is a PON technology defined in ITU-T G.984x series of standards. The figure below shows the network structure of GPON.

Application

The GPON access technology provides high-bandwidth transmission, overcomes the bandwidth bottleneck faced by access over twisted pairs, and caters to users’demand for high bandwidth services.

Advantages of GPON application

High density: Supports a split ratio of 1:128. A GC8B card supports access of 1K subscribers; and a GCOB card supports access of 2K subscribers.

High bandwidth: Currently, GPON can provide a bandwidth of 1.25 Gbit/s in the uplink direction and 2.5 Gbit/s in the downlink direction. The bandwidth can be smoothly migrated to 10 Gbit/s.

Hierarchical quality of service (HQoS): Ensures that 4K-resolution video programs are not suspended in case of bandwidth congestion.

FEC function: Enhances fault tolerance of the system to ODN errors

GPON and EPON Interface Card Comparison

The  Fiberhome AN5116 series OLT subracks are designed with different capacity, and can be configured with various service cards to support multiple access scenarios. With regard to access capacity, the AN5116 series OLT can be classified into large-, medium- and small-sized ones to cater for different access demands:

· Large-sized AN5516-01/AN5516-06B: with 16 service slots deployed in a central office.

· Medium-sized AN5516-06: with 6 service slots deployed in a central office.

· Small-sized AN5516-04: with 2 service slots, deployed flexibly in sparsely-populated areas.

Below table is the Fiberhome GPON/EPON service card parameters comparison:

PON service card	EPON			GPON
	EC4B	EC8B	ECOB	GC4B	GC8B	GCOB
Application	AN5116-06B,    AN5516-06,    N5516-04
Type	4×EPON-C Interface Card	8×EPON-C Interface Card	16×EPON-C Interface Card	4×GPON-B Interface Card	8×GPON-C Interface Card	16×GPON-C Interface Card
Ports	4-ports	8-ports	16-ports	4-ports	8-ports	16-ports
Split ratio	1:64	1:64	1:64	1:128	1:128	1:128
Interface type	SC / PC	SC / PC	SC / PC	SC / PC	SC / PC	SC / PC
Number of Single VLANs		4K	4K	4K	4K	4K
Number of Translated VLANs		16K	16K	8K	8K or 16K	32K
1588 V2		√	√		√	√
SyncE		×	×		×	×
Intra-card aggregation	×	×	×	×	×	×
Inter-card aggregation	×	×	×	×	×	×
Type B	√	√	√	√	√	√
Type B	√	√	√	√	√	√
Power Consumption	<40W			<40W