Passive Optical Networks

Yaakov (J) Stein

and
Zvika Eitan

May 2007

Outline

PON benefits
PON architecture
Fiber optic basics
PON physical layer
PON user plane
PON control plane

PONs

Slide 2

PON benefits

PONs

Slide 3

Why fiber ?
todays high datarate networks are all based on optical fiber
the reason is simple (examples for demonstration sake)

twisted copper pair(s)

8 Mbps @ 3 km, 1.5 Mbps @ 5.5 km (ADSL)
1 Gb @ 100 meters (802.3ab)

microwave
70 Mbps @ 30 km (WiMax)

coax
10 Mbps @ 3.6 km (10BROAD36)
30 Mbps @ 30 km (cable modem)

optical fiber
10 Mbps @ 2 km (10BASE-FL)
100 Mbps @ 400m (100BASE-FX)
1 Gbps @ 2km (1000BASE-LX)
10 Gbps @ 40 (80) km (10GBASE-E(Z)R)
40 Gbps @ 700 km [Nortel] or 3000 km [Verizon]
PONs

Slide 4

Aside why is fiber better ?

attenuation per unit length
reasons for energy loss
copper: resistance, skin effect, radiation, coupling
fiber: internal scattering, imperfect total internal reflection

so fiber beats coax by about 2 orders of magnitude

e.g. 10 dB/km for thin coax at 50MHz, 0.15 dB/km l =1550nm fiber

noise ingress and cross-talk

copper couples to all nearby conductors

no similar ingress mechanism for fiber

ground-potential, galvanic isolation, lightning protection

copper can be hard to handle and dangerous

no concerns for fiber
PONs

Slide 5

Why not fiber ?

fiber beats all other technologies for speed and reach
but fiber has its own problems

harder to splice, repair, and need to handle carefully

regenerators and even amplifiers are problematic

more expensive to deploy than for copper

digital processing requires electronics

so need to convert back to electronics
we will call the converter an optical transceiver
optical transceivers are expensive

copper

fiber

switching easier with electronics (but possible with photonics)

so pure fiber networks are topologically limited:
point-to-point
rings
PONs

Slide 6

Access network bottleneck

hard for end users to get high datarates because of the access bottleneck
local area networks
use copper cable
get high datarates over short distances
core networks
use fiber optics
get high datarate over long distances
small number of active network elements

access

core

access networks (first/last mile)

LAN
long distances
so fiber would be the best choice
many network elements and large number of endpoints
if fiber is used then need multiple optical transceivers
so copper is the best choice
this severely limits the datarates
PONs

Slide 7

Fiber To The Curb

Hybrid Fiber Coax and VDSL
switch/transceiver/miniDSLAM located at curb or in basement
need only 2 optical transceivers
but not pure optical solution
lower BW from transceiver to end users
need complex converter in constrained environment

core

N end users

feeder fiber

copper
access network

PONs

Slide 8

Fiber To The Premises

we can implement point-to-multipoint topology purely in optics

but we need a fiber (pair) to each end user

requires 2 N optical transceivers
complex and costly to maintain

N end users

core

access network
PONs

Slide 9

An obvious solution
deploy intermediate switches
(active) switch located at curb or in basement
saves space at central office
need 2 N + 2 optical transceivers

core

N end users

feeder fiber

fiber
access network

PONs

Slide 10

The PON solution

another alternative - implement point-to-multipoint topology purely in optics
avoid costly optic-electronic conversions
use passive splitters no power needed, unlimited MTBF
only N+1 optical transceivers (minimum possible) !
access network
1:2 passive splitter
N end users

core

typically N=32
max defined 128
feeder fiber

1:4 passive splitter

PONs

Slide 11

PON advantages
shared infrastructure translates to lower cost per customer
minimal number of optical transceivers
feeder fiber and transceiver costs divided by N customers
greenfield per-customer cost similar to UTP
passive splitters translate to lower cost

can be installed anywhere

no power needed
essentially unlimited MTBF

fiber data-rates can be upgraded as technology improves

initially 155 Mbps

then 622 Mbps
now 1.25 Gbps
soon 2.5 Gbps and higher

PONs

Slide 12

PON
architecture

PONs

Slide 13

Terminology
like every other field, PON technology has its own terminology
the CO head-end is called an OLT
ONUs are the CPE devices (sometimes called ONTs in ITU)
the entire fiber tree (incl. feeder, splitters, distribution fibers) is an ODN
all trees emanating from the same OLT form an OAN
downstream is from OLT to ONU (upstream is the opposite direction)
downstream
upstream
NNI

Optical Distribution Network

core

Optical Network Units

splitter

Optical Line Terminal

Optical Access Network

UNI
Terminal Equipment
PONs

Slide 14

PON types
many types of PONs have been defined

APON

ATM PON

BPON

Broadband PON

GPON

Gigabit PON

EPON

Ethernet PON

GEPON

Gigabit Ethernet PON

CPON

CDMA PON

WPON

WDM PON

in this course we will focus on GPON and EPON (including GEPON)

with a touch of BPON thrown in for the flavor

PONs

Slide 15

Bibliography

BPON is explained in ITU-T G.983.x

GPON is explained in ITU-T G.984.x
EPON is explained in IEEE 802.3-2005 clauses 64 and 65
(but other 802.3 clauses are also needed)

Warning
do not believe white papers from vendors
especially not with respect to GPON/EPON comparisons

GPON

BPON

EPON

PONs

Slide 16

PON principles
(almost) all PON types obey the same basic principles

OLT and ONU consist of

Layer 2 (Ethernet MAC, ATM adapter, etc.)
optical transceiver using different ls for transmit and receive

optionally: Wavelength Division Multiplexer

downstream transmission
OLT broadcasts data downstream to all ONUs in ODN
ONU captures data destined for its address, discards all other data
encryption needed to ensure privacy
upstream transmission
ONUs share bandwidth using Time Division Multiple Access
OLT manages the ONU timeslots
ranging is performed to determine ONU-OLT propagation time
additional functionality
Physical Layer OAM
Autodiscovery
Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation
PONs

Slide 17

Why a new protocol ?

PON has a unique architecture

downstream
upstream

(broadcast) point-to-multipoint in DS direction

(multiple access) multipoint-to-point in US direction

contrast that with, for example

Ethernet - multipoint-to-multipoint
ATM
- point-to-point

This means that existing protocols

do not provide all the needed functionality
e.g. receive filtering, ranging, security, BW allocation

PONs

Slide 18

(multi)point - to - (multi)point
Multipoint-to-multipoint Ethernet avoids collisions
by CSMA/CD
This can't work for multipoint-to-point US PON
since ONUs don't see each other
And the OLT can't arbitrate without adding a roundtrip time
Point-to-point ATM can send data in the open
although trusted intermediate switches see all data
customer switches only receive their own data
This can't work for point-to-multipoint DS PON
since all ONUs see all DS data

PONs

Slide 19

PON encapsulation
The majority of PON traffic is Ethernet
So EPON enthusiasts say
use EPON - it's just Ethernet
That's true by definition anything in 802.3 is Ethernet
and EPON is defined in clauses 64 and 65 of 802.3-2005
But don't be fooled - all PON methods encapsulate MAC frames
EPON and GPON differ in the contents of the header
EPON hides the new header inside the GbE preamble
GPON can also carry non-Ethernet payloads
PON header

DA

SA

data

FCS
PONs

Slide 20

BPON history
1995 : 7 operators (BT, FT, NTT, ) and a few vendors form
Full Service Access Network Initiative
to provide business customers with multiservice broadband offering
Obvious choices were ATM (multiservice) and PON (inexpensive)
which when merged became APON
1996 : name changed to BPON to avoid too close association with ATM
1997 : FSAN proposed BPON to ITU SG15
1998 : BPON became G.983
G.982 : PON requirements and definitions
G.983.1 : 155 Mbps BPON
G.983.2 : management and control interface
G.983.3 : WDM for additional services
G.983.4 : DBA
G.983.5 : enhanced survivability
G.983.1 amd 1 : 622 Mbps rate
G.983.1 amd 2 : 1244 Mbps rate

PONs

Slide 21

EPON history
2001: IEEE 802 LMSC WG accepts

Ethernet in the First Mile Project Authorization Request

becomes EFM task force (largest 802 task force ever formed)
EFM task force had 4 tracks

DSL (now in clauses 61, 62, 63)

Ethernet OAM (now clause 57)
Optics (now in clauses 58, 59, 60, 65)
P2MP (now clause 64)

2002 : liaison activity with ITU to agree upon wavelength allocations

2003 : WG ballot
2004 : full standard

2005: new 802.3 version with EFM clauses

PONs

Slide 22

GPON history
2001 : FSAN initiated work on extension of BPON to > 1 Gbps
Although GPON is an extension of BPON technology
and reuses much of G.983 (e.g. linecode, rates, band-plan, OAM)
decision was not to be backward compatible with BPON
2001 : GFP developed (approved 2003)
2003 : GPON became G.984

G.984.1 : GPON general characteristics

G.984.2 : Physical Media Dependent layer
G.984.3 : Transmission Convergence layer
G.984.4 : management and control interface

PONs

Slide 23

Fiber optics - basics

PONs

Slide 24

Total Internal Reflection

in Step-Index Multimode Fiber

= sin 1(n2/n1)

V =c/n

t = Propagation Time
t Vacuum: n=1,

t=3.336ns/m

t Water : n=1.33, t=4.446ns/m

t = Ln/c
PONs

Slide 25

Types of Optical Fiber

Popular Fiber
Sizes

Multimode GradedIndex Fiber

Single-mode
Fiber

PONs

Slide 26

Optical Loss versus Wavelength

Click to edit Master text styles

Second level

Third level

Fourth level

PONs

Slide 27

Sources of Dispersion

Total Dispersion
Multimode
Dispersion

Chromatic
Dispersion

Material
Dispersion

PONs

Slide 28

Multimode Dispersion

11

Dispersion limits bandwidth in optical fiber

PONs

Slide 29

Graded-index Dispersion

11

1 0 1

PONs

Slide 30

Single-Mode Dispersion

11

In SM the limit bandwidth is caused by chromatic dispersion.

PONs

Slide 31

System Design Consideration

How to calculate bandwidth?

For a 1.25 Gb/s we need a BW of 0.7 BitRate = 1.143ns

Tc = Dmat * l * L
For Laser 1550nm Fabry Perot

Tc = (20ps/nm * km) * 5nm * 15km = 1.5ns

For Laser 1550nm DFB

Tc = (20ps/nm * km) * 0.2nm * 60km = 0.24ns

PONs

Slide 32

Material Dispersion (Dmat)

PONs

Slide 33

Spectral Characteristics

LASER/laser diode: Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. Done of the wide range of
devices that generates light by that principle. Laser light is directional, covers a narrow range of
wavelengths, and is more coherent than ordinary light. Semiconductor diode lasers are the standard light
sources in fiber optic systems. Lasers emit light by stimulated emission.
PONs

Slide 34

Laser Optical Power Output vs. Forward Current

W

Laser

PONs

Slide 35

Light Detectors
PIN DIODES (PD)
- Operation simular to LEDs, but in reverse, photon are converted to electrons
- Simple, relatively low- cost
- Limited in sensitivity and operating range
- Used for lower- speed or short distance applications

AVALANCHE PHOTODIODES (APD)

- Use more complex design and higher operating voltage than PIN diodes
to produce amplification effect

- Significantly more sensitive than PIN diodes

- More complex design increases cost
- Used for long-haul/higher bit rate systems
PONs

Slide 36

Wavelength-Division Multiplexing

PONs

Slide 37

WDM Duplexing

PONs

Slide 38

Basic Configuration of PON

OLT = Optical Line Termination

ONU = Optical Network Unit
BMCDR = Burst Mode Clock Data Recovery
PONs

Slide 39

Typical PON Configuration and Optical Packets

PONs

Slide 40

Eye diagram of ONU transceiver

in burst mode operation

PONs

Slide 41

Burst-Mode Transmitter in ONU

PONs

Slide 42

OLT Burst-Mode Receiver

PONs

Slide 43

Burst-Mode CDR

PONs

Slide 44

Sampling

Ideal sampling instant

Hysteresis

Superimposed interference
Ideal, error-free transmission

PONs

Slide 45

Transceiver Block Diagram

PONs

Slide 46

Optical Splitters

PONs

Slide 47

Optical Protection Switch

Optical Splitter

PONs

Slide 48

Budget Calculations

LB

= PS - PO

= Link Budget
PS = Sensitivity
PO = Output Power
LB

Example: GPON 1310nm

Power: 0dbm Single-mode
fiber
Sensitivity: -23dbm

Link Budget:
23db
PONs

Slide 49

Typical Range Calculation

Assume:

Optical loss = 0.35 db/km

Connector Loss = 2dB

Range Budget: ~11Km

Splitter Insertion Loss 1X32 = 17dB

PONs

Slide 50

Relationship between transmission distance

and number of splits

PONs

Slide 51

GbE Fiber Optic Characteristics

PONs

Slide 52

PON physical layer

PONs

Slide 53

l allocations - G.983.1
Upstream and downstream directions need about the same bandwidth
US serves N customers, so it needs N times the BW of each customer
but each customer can only transmit 1/N of the time
In APON and early BPON work it was decided that 100 nm was needed
Where should these bands be placed for best results?
In the second and third windows !
1260 - 1360 nm (1310 50) second window

Upstream

Downstream 1480 - 1580 nm (1530 50) third window

US
1200 nm

1300 nm

DS
1400 nm

1500 nm

1600 nm
PONs

Slide 54

l allocations - G.983.3
Afterwards it became clear that there was a need for additional DS bands
Pressing needs were broadcast video and data
Where could these new DS bands be placed ?
At about the same time G.694.2 defined 20 nm CWDM bands

these were made possible because of new inexpensive hardware

(uncooled Distributed Feedback Lasers)
One of the CWDM bands was 1490 10 nm
same bottom l as the G.983.1 DS

1270

1630

1490

So it was decided to use this band as the G.983.3 DS

and leave the US unchanged
guard
available

US
1200 nm

1300 nm

DS
1400 nm

1500 nm

1600 nm
PONs

Slide 55

l allocations - final
US
1200 nm

1300 nm

DS
1400 nm

1500 nm

1600 nm

The G.983.3 band-plan was incorporated into GPON

and via liaison activity into EPON
and is now the universally accepted xPON band-plan

US 1260-1360 nm (1310 50)

DS 1480-1500 nm (1490 10)

enhancement bands:
video 1550 - 1560 nm (see ITU-T J.185/J.186)
digital 1539-1565 nm

PONs

Slide 56

Data rates (for now )

PON
BPON
Amd 1
Amd 2

GPON

EPON
10GEPON

DS (Mbps)
155.52
622.08
622.08
1244.16
1244.16
1244.16
1244.16
1244.16
2488.32
2488.32
2488.32
2488.32
1250*
10312.5*

US (Mbps)
155.52
155.52
622.08
155.52
622.08
155.52
622.08
1244.16
155.52
622.08
1244.16
2488.32
1250*
10312.5*

* only 1G/10G usable due to linecode

work in progress

PONs

Slide 57

Reach and splits

Reach and the number of ONUs supported are contradictory design goals
In addition to physical reach derived from optical budget
there is logical reach limited by protocol concerns (e.g. ranging protocol)
and differential reach (distance between nearest and farthest ONUs)
The number of ONUs supported depends not only on the number of splits
but also on the addressing scheme
BPON called for 20 km and 32-64 ONUs
GPON allows 64-128 splits and the reach is usually 20 km
but there is a low-cost 10 km mode (using Fabry-Perot laser diodes in ONUs)
and a long physical reach 60 km mode with 20 km differential reach
EPON allows 16-256 splits (originally designed for link budget of 24 dB, but now 30 dB)
and has 10 km and 20 km Physical Media Dependent sublayers

PONs

Slide 58

Line codes
BPON and GPON use a simple NRZ linecode (high is 1 and low is 0)

An I.432-style scrambling operation is applied to payload (not to PON overhead)

Preferable to conventional scrambler because no error propagation
each standard and each direction use different LFSRs
LFSR initialized with all ones
LFSR sequence is XOR'ed with data before transmission
EPON uses the 802.3z (1000BASE-X) line code - 8B/10B
Every 8 data bits are converted into 10 bits before transmission
DC removal and timing recovery ensured by mapping
Special function codes (e.g. idle, start_of_packet, end_of_packet, etc)
However, 1000 Mbps is expanded to 1250 Mbps
10GbE uses a different linecode - 64B/66B

PONs

Slide 59

FEC
G984.3 clause 13 and 802.3-2005 subclause 65.2.3
define an optional G.709-style Reed-Solomon code
Use (255,239,8) systematic RS code designed for submarine fiber (G.975)
to every 239 data bytes add 16 parity bytes to make 255 byte FEC block
Up to 8 byte errors can be corrected
Improves power budget by over 3 dB,
allowing increased reach or additional splits
Use of FEC is negotiated between OLT and ONU
Since code is systematic
can use in environment where some ONUs do not support FEC
In GPON FEC frames are aligned with PON frames
In EPON FEC frames are marked using K-codes
(and need 8B10B decode - FEC - 8B10B encode)

PONs

Slide 60

More physical layer problems

Near-far problem
OLT needs to know signal strength to set decision threshold
If large distance between near/far ONUs, then very different attenuations
If radically different received signal strength can't use a single threshold
EPON: measure received power of ONU at beginning of burst
GPON: OLT feedback to ONUs to properly set transmit power
Burst laser problem
Spontaneous emission noise from nearby ONU lasers causes interference
Electrically shut ONU laser off when not transmitting
But lasers have long warm-up time
and ONU lasers must stabilize quickly after being turned on

PONs

Slide 61

US timing diagram
How does the ONU US transmission appear to the OLT ?

grant

grant
inter-ONU
guard

laser
turn-on

data
laser
turn-off

lock

lock

data
laser
turn-on

laser
turn-off

Notes:
GPON - ONU reports turn-on and turn-off times to OLT
ONU preamble length set by OLT
EPON - long lock time as need to Automatic Gain Control and Clock/Data Recovery
long inter-ONU guard due to AGC-reset
Ethernet preamble is part of data
PONs

Slide 62

PON User plane

PONs

Slide 63

How does it work?

ONU stores client data in large buffers (ingress queues)
ONU sends a high-speed burst upon receiving a grant/allocation
Ranging must be performed for ONU to transmit at the right time
DBA - OLT allocates BW according to ONU queue levels

OLT identifies ONU traffic by label

OLT extracts traffic units and passes to network
OLT receives traffic from network and encapsulates into PON frames
OLT prefixes with ONU label and broadcasts
ONU receives all packets and filters according to label
ONU extracts traffic units and passes to client

PONs

Slide 64

Labels
In an ODN there is 1 OLT, but many ONUs
ONUs must somehow be labeled for
OLT to identify the destination ONU
ONU to identify itself as the source
EPON assigns a single label Logical Link ID to each ONU (15b)
GPON has several levels of labels

ONU_ID (1B) (1B)

Transmission-CONTainer (AKA Alloc_ID) (12b) (can be >1 T-CONT per ONU)
For ATM mode
VPI
VC
VP
VC
ONU T-CONT VP
VCI
VC
VC
For GEM mode
PON
Port
Port_ID (12b) (12b)
ONU T-CONT
Port

PONs

Slide 65

DS GPON format
GPON Transmission Convergence frames are always 125 msec long
19440 bytes / frame for 1244.16 rate
38880 bytes / frame for 2488.32 rate
Each GTC frame consists of Physical Control Block downstream + payload
PCBd contains sync, OAM, DBA info, etc.
payload may have ATM and GEM partitions (either one or both)
GTC frame
PCBd

payload

PSync (4B)

Ident (4B)

125 msec

scrambled

PCBd

payload

PLOAMd (13B)

PLend (4B) PLend (4B)

BIP (1B)

PCBd

payload

ATM
partition

GEM
partition

US BW map (N*8B)
PONs

Slide 66

GPON payloads
GTC payload potentially has 2 sections:
ATM partition (Alen * 53 bytes in length)
GEM partition (now preferred method)
PCBd
ATM cell ATM cell ATM cell GEM frame
GEM frame
ATM partition

GEM frame

Alen (12 bits) is specified in the PCBd

Alen specifies the number of 53B cells in the ATM partition
if Alen=0 then no ATM partition
if Alen=payload length / 53 then no GEM partition
ATM cells are aligned to GTC frame
ONUs accept ATM cells based on VPI in ATM header
GEM partition
Unlike ATM cells, GEM delineated frames may have any length
Any number of GEM frames may be contained in the GEM partition
ONUs accept GEM frames based on 12b Port-ID in GEM header
PONs

Slide 67

GPON Encapsulation Mode

A common complaint against BPON was inefficiency due to ATM cell tax
GEM is similar to ATM
constant-size HEC-protected header
but avoids large overhead by allowing variable length frames
GEM is generic any packet type (and even TDM) supported
GEM supports fragmentation and reassembly
GEM is based on GFP, and the header contains the following fields:
Payload Length Indicator - payload length in Bytes
Port ID - identifies the target ONU
Payload Type Indicator (GEM OAM, congestion/fragmentation indication)
Header Error Correction field (BCH(39,12,2) code+ 1b even parity)
The GEM header is XOR'ed with B6AB31E055 before transmission
PLI
(12b)

Port ID
(12b)
5B

PTI
(3b)

HEC
(13b)

payload fragment
(L Bytes)
PONs

Slide 68

Ethernet / TDM over GEM

When transporting Ethernet traffic over GEM:
only MAC frame is encapsulated (no preamble, SFD, EFD)
MAC frame may be fragmented (see next slide)
Ethernet over GEM
PLI

ID

PTI HEC DA

SA

data

FCS

When transporting TDM traffic over GEM:

TDM input buffer polled every 125 msec.
PLI bytes of TDM are inserted into payload field
length of TDM fragment may vary by 1 Byte due to frequency offset
round-trip latency bounded by 3 msec.
TDM over GEM
PLI

ID

PTI HEC

PLI Bytes of TDM

PONs

Slide 69

GEM fragmentation
GEM can fragment its payload

For example
unfragmented Ethernet frame
PLI

ID

PTI=001 HEC DA

SA

data

FCS

fragmented Ethernet frame

PLI

ID

PTI=000 HEC DA

SA

PLI

ID

PTI=001 HEC

data2

data1
FCS

GEM fragments payloads for either of two reasons:

GEM frame may not straddle GTC frame

PCBd ATM partition GEM frame GEM frag 1 PCBd ATM partition

GEM frag 2

GEM frame may be pre-empted for delay-sensitive data

PCBd ATM partition urgent frame large frag 1
PCBd ATM partition urgent frame

GEM frame

large frag 2

PONs

Slide 70

PCBd
We saw that the PCBd is
PSync

Ident

PLOAMd

BIP

PLend

PLend

US BW map

(4B)
B6AB31E0

(4B)

(13B)

(1B)

(4B)

(4B)

(N*8B)

PSync - fixed pattern used by ONU to located start of GTC frame

Ident - MSB indicates if FEC is used, 30 LSBs are superframe counter
PLOAMd - carries OAM, ranging, alerts, activation messages, etc.
BIP - SONET/SDH-style Bit Interleaved Parity of all bytes since last BIP

PLend (transmitted twice for robustness) Blen - 12 MSB are length of BW map in units of 8 Bytes
Alen - Next 12 bits are length of ATM partition in cells
CRC - final 8 bits are CRC over Blen and Alen
US BW map - array of Blen 8B structures granting BW to US flow
will discuss later (DBA)
PONs

Slide 71

GPON US considerations
GTC fames are still 125 msec long, but shared amongst ONUs
Each ONU transmits a burst of data
using timing acquired by locking onto OLT signal
according to time allocation sent by OLT in BWmap
there may be multiple allocations to single ONU
OLT computes DBA by monitoring traffic status (buffers)
of ONUs and knowing priorities
at power level requested by OLT (3 levels)
this enables OLT to use avalanche photodiodes which are
sensitive to high power bursts
leaving a guard time from previous ONU's transmission
prefixing a preamble to enable OLT to acquire power and phase
identifying itself (ONU-ID) in addition to traffic IDs (VPI, Port-ID)
scrambling data (but not preamble/delimiter)
PONs

Slide 72

US GPON format
4 different US overhead types:

Physical Layer Overhead upstream

always sent by ONU when taking over from another ONU
contains preamble and delimiter (lengths set by OLT in PLOAMd)
BIP (1B), ONU-ID (1B), and Indication of real-time status (1B)

PLOAM upstream (13B) - messaging with PLOAMd

Power Levelling Sequence upstream (120B)

used during power-set and power-change to help set ONU
power so that OLT sees similar power from all ONUs

Dynamic Bandwidth Report upstream

sends traffic status to OLT in order to enable DBA computation

if all OH types are present:

PLOu

PLOAMd

PLSu

DBRu

payload

PONs

Slide 73

US allocation example
DS frame
PCBd

BWmap

payload

Alloc-ID SStart SStop Alloc-ID SStart Sstop Alloc-ID SStart SStop

US frame

preamble
+
delimiter

guard
time

scrambled

BWmap sent by OLT to ONUs is a list of

ONU allocation IDs
flags (not shown above) tell if use FEC, which US OHs to use, etc.
start and stop times (16b fields, in Bytes from beginning of US frame)
PONs

Slide 74

EPON format
EPON operation is based on the Ethernet MAC

and EPON frames are based on GbE frames

but extensions are needed

clause 64 - MultiPoint Control Protocol PDUs

this is the control protocol implementing the required logic

clause 65 - point-to-point emulation (reconciliation)

this makes the EPON look like a point-to-point link

and EPON MACs have some special constraints

instead of CSMA/CD they transmit when granted

time through MAC stack must be constant ( 16 bit durations)
accurate local time must be maintained
PONs

Slide 75

EPON header
Standard Ethernet starts with an essentially content-free 8B preamble
7B of alternating ones and zeros 10101010
1B of SFD 10101011
In order to hide the new PON header
EPON overwrites some of the preamble bytes
10101010

10101010

10101010

10101010

10101010

10101010

10101010

10101011

10101010

10101010

10101011

10101010

10101010

LLID

LLID

CRC

LLID field contains

MODE (1b)
always 0 for ONU
0 for OLT unicast, 1 for OLT multicast/broadcast
actual Logical Link ID (15b)
Identifies registered ONUs
7FFF for broadcast
CRC protects from SLD (byte 3) through LLID (byte 7)
PONs

Slide 76

MPC PDU format

MultiPoint Control Protocol frames are untagged MAC frames
with the same format as PAUSE frames
DA

SA

L/T

Opcode

timestamp

data / RES / pad

FCS

Ethertype = 8808
Opcodes (2B) - presently defined:
GATE/REPORT/REGISTER_REQ/REGISTER/REGISTER_ACK
Timestamp is 32b, 16 ns resolution
conveys the sender's time at time of MPCPDU transmission
Data field is needed for some messages

PONs

Slide 77

Security
DS traffic is broadcast to all ONUs, so encryption is essential
easy for a malicious user to reprogram ONU to capture desired frames

US traffic not seen by other ONUs, so encryption is not needed

do not take fiber-tappers into account

EPON does not provide any standard encryption method

can supplement with IPsec or MACsec
many vendors have added proprietary AES-based mechanisms
in China special China Telecom encryption algorithm

BPON used a mechanism called churning

Churning was a low cost hardware solution (24b key)

with several security flaws
engine was linear - simple known-text attack
24b key turned out to be derivable in 512 tries
So G.983.3 added AES support - now used in GPON
PONs

Slide 78

GPON encryption
OLT encrypts using AES-128 in counter mode

Only payload is encrypted (not ATM or GEM headers)

Encryption blocks aligned to GTC frame
Counter is shared by OLT and all ONUs
46b = 16b intra-frame + 30 bits inter-frame
intra-frame counter increments every 4 data bytes
reset to zero at beginning of DS GTC frame

OLT and each ONU must agree on a unique symmetric key

OLT asks ONU for a password (in PLOAMd)
ONU sends password US in the clear (in PLOAMu)
key sent 3 times for robustness
OLT informs ONU of precise time to start using new key

PONs

Slide 79

QoS - EPON
Many PON applications require high QoS (e.g. IPTV)
EPON leaves QoS to higher layers
VLAN tags
P bits or DiffServ DSCP

In addition, there is a crucial difference between LLID and Port-ID

there is always 1 LLID per ONU
there is 1 Port-ID per input port - there may be many per ONU
this makes port-based QoS simple to implement at PON layer

RT

EF

BE

GPON

PONs

Slide 80

QoS - GPON
GPON treats QoS explicitly
constant length frames facilitate QoS for time-sensitive applications
5 types of Transmission CONTainers
type 1 - fixed BW
type 2 - assured BW
type 3 - allocated BW + non-assured BW
type 4 - best effort
type 5 - superset of all of the above

GEM adds several PON-layer QoS features

fragmentation enables pre-emption of large low-priority frames
PLI - explicit packet length can be used by queuing algorithms
PTI bits carry congestion indications

PONs

Slide 81

PON control plane

PONs

Slide 82

Principles
GPON uses PLOAMd and PLOAMu as control channel
PLOAM are incorporated in regular (data-carrying) frames

Standard ITU control mechanism

EPON uses MPCP PDUs

Standard IEEE control mechanism

EPON control model - OLT is master, ONU is slave
OLT sends GATE PDUs DS to ONU
ONU sends REPORT PDUs US to OLT

PONs

Slide 83

Ranging

Upstream traffic is TDMA

Were all ONUs equidistant, and were all to have a common clock
then each would simply transmit in its assigned timeslot
But otherwise the signals will overlap
To eliminate overlap

guard times left between timeslots

each ONU transmits with the proper delay to avoid overlap
delay computed during a ranging process
PONs

Slide 84

Ranging background
In order for the ONU to transmit at the correct time
the delay between ONU transmission and OLT reception
needs to be known (explicitly or implicitly)
Need to assign an equalization-delay
The more accurately it is known
the smaller the guard time that needs to be left
and thus the higher the efficiency
Assumptions behind the ranging methods used:

can not assume US delay is equal to DS delay

delays are not constant
due to temperature changes and component aging
GPON: ONUs not time synchronized accurately enough
EPON: ONUs are accurately time synchronized (std contains jitter masks)
with time offset by OLT-ONU propagation time
PONs

Slide 85

GPON ranging method

Two types of ranging
initial ranging
only performed at ONU boot-up or upon ONU discovery
must be performed before ONU transmits first time
continuous ranging
performed continuously to compensate for delay changes
OLT initiates coarse ranging by stopping allocations to all other ONUs
thus when new ONU transmits, it will be in the clear
OLT instructs the new ONU to transmit (via PLOAMd)
OLT measures phase of ONU burst in GTC frame

OLT sends equalization delay to ONU (in PLOAMd)

During normal operation OLT monitors ONU burst phase
If drift is detected OLT sends new equalization delay to ONU (in PLOAMd)

PONs

Slide 86

EPON ranging method

All ONUs are synchronized to absolute time (wall-clock)
When an ONU receives an MPCPDU from OLT
it sets its clock according to the OLT's timestamp
When the OLT receives an MPCPDU in response to its MPCPDU
it computes a "round-trip time" RTT (without handling times)
it informs the ONU of RTT, which is used to compute transmit delay
OLT sends MPCPDU ONU receives MPCPDU
Timestamp = T0
Sets clock to T0

ONU sends MPCPDU

Timestamp = T1

OLT receives MPCPDU

RTT = T2 - T1

time

OLT time
ONU time

T0

T2
T0

T1

RTT = (T2-T0) - (T1-T0) = T2-T1

OLT compensates all grants by RTT before sending
Either ONU or OLT can detect that timestamp drift exceeds threshold

PONs

Slide 87

Autodiscovery
OLT needs to know with which ONUs it is communicating
This can be established via NMS
but even then need to setup physical layer parameters
PONs employ autodiscovery mechanism to automate

discovery of existence of ONU

acquisition of identity
allocation of identifier
acquisition of ONU capabilities
measure physical layer parameters
agree on parameters (e.g. watchdog timers)

Autodiscovery procedures are complex (and uninteresting)

so we will only mention highlights

PONs

Slide 88

GPON autodiscovery
Every ONU has an 8B serial number (4B vendor code + 4B SN)
SN of ONUs in OAN may be configured by NMS, or
SN may be learnt from ONU in discovery phase
ONU activation may be triggered by
Operator command
Periodic polling by OLT
OLT searching for previously operational ONU
G.984.3 differentiates between three cases:
cold PON / cold ONU
warm PON / cold ONU
warm PON / warm ONU
Main steps in procedure:
ONU sets power based on DS message
OLT sends a Serial_Number request to all unregistered ONUs
ONU responds
OLT assigns 1B ONU-ID and sends to ONU
ranging is performed
ONU is operational
PONs

Slide 89

EPON autodiscovery
OLT periodically transmits DISCOVERY GATE messages
ONU waits for DISCOVERY GATE to be broadcast by OLT
DISCOVERY GATE message defines discovery window
start time and duration
ONU transmits REGISTER_REQ PDU using random offset in window
OLT receives request
registers ONU
assigns LLID
bonds MAC to LLID
performs ranging computation
OLT sends REGISTER to ONU

OLT sends standard GATE to ONU

ONU responds with REGISTER_ACK
ONU goes into operational mode - waits for grants
PONs

Slide 90

Failure recovery
PONs must be able to handle various failure states

GPON
if ONU detects LOS or LOF it goes into POPUP state
it stops sending traffic US
OLT detects LOS for ONU
if there is a pre-ranged backup fiber then switch-over
EPON
during normal operation ONU REPORTs reset OLT's watchdog timer
similarly, OLT must send GATES periodically (even if empty ones)
if OLT's watchdog timer for ONU times out
ONU is deregistered

PONs

Slide 91

Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation

MANs and WANs have relatively stationary BW requirements
due to aggregation of large number of sources
But each ONU in a PON may serve only 1 or a small number of users
So BW required is highly variable

It would be inefficient to statically assign the same BW to each ONU

So PONs assign dynamically BW according to need
The need can be discovered
by passively observing the traffic from the ONU
by ONU sending reports as to state of its ingress queues
The goals of a Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation algorithm are
maximum fiber BW utilization
fairness and respect of priority
minimum delay introduced

PONs

Slide 92

GPON DBA
DBA is at the T-CONT level, not port or VC/VP

GPON can use traffic monitoring (passive) or status reporting (active)

There are three different status reporting methods

status in PLOu - one bit for each T-CONT type

piggy-back reports in DBRu - 3 different formats:

quantity of data waiting in buffers,
separation of data with peak and sustained rate tokens
nonlinear coding of data according to T-CONT type and tokens

ONU report in DBA payload - select T-CONT states

OLT may use any DBA algorithm

OLT sends allocations in US BW map

PONs

Slide 93

EPON DBA
OLT sends GATE messages to ONUs
GATE message
DA SA 8808 Opcode=0002 timestamp

Ngrants/flags

grants

Reports

flags include DISCOVERY and Force_Report

Force_Report tells the ONU to issue a report

REPORT message
DA SA 8808 Opcode=0003 timestamp

Nqueue_sets

Reports represent the length of each queue at time of report

OLT may use any algorithm to decide how to send the following grants

PONs

Slide 94