1

Compaarison of
o Actiive and Passsive Opptical
A
Access
s Netw works
C.P. Larsen, A. Gavler, andd K. Wang

PON it is necessary too define what isi meant by AO ON and PON

Abstract— Actiive and passivee optical networrks are comparred.
A and alsoo to use a comm mon reference model. This iss rarely done
Baased on a reference model that covers AON an nd PON as well as in literaature whereby comparisons
c m become miisleading.
may
thee interfacing eqquipment, the different
d sites and locations in
n an This paper makes a functional comparison based on a
acccess network are identified. Such
S a referencce model is necces-
sarry in order to make a properr techno-economical comparison
common reference model.
m Moreovver, by using this
t model a
bettween the varioous optical acccess network arrchitectures. Also,
A proper techno-econom mic comparisoon can also bee carried out
succh a model maakes it easier too compare funcctional differen nces particullarly with regaards to capital expenditure
e (CCAPEX), but
bettween AON and d PON. The reeference model particularly foocu- the model will also assist in identtifying certainn operational
sess on identifyingg CAPEX contrributions, but also
a OPEX con ntri- expendiitures (OPEX X) issues. A detailed technno-economic
buttions are regarded. Moreover,, the definition of PON and AO ON comparrison is not thee scope of thiss paper. Howeever, we will
hass been refined in order to achieve
a a much h more consisttent
terrminology.
outline what this coould look likee by making a high-level
analysiss and compariison. Using thhe reference modelm it also
becomees possible to better identifyy in which caases AON is
I
Index Terms—
— AON, Opticall access networrks, PON, tech
hno- preferabble and in whicch cases PON is i preferable.
ecoonomics
II. REFEREN R AON AND PO
NCE MODEL FOR ON
I. INTRO
ODUCTION
In thhis section, a general model based on the t network

T HERE are baasically two diifferent kinds of optical acccess

networks, namely
n
passsive optical network
n
active optical netw work (AON) and
(PON)). AON is alsoo known as acttive
a
geograpphic distributioon is introducced in order to enable a
proper comparison
c between AON annd PON technoologies.
A. Siimplified refereence model – site
s location
Ethhernet or poiint-to-point (p p2p) Ethernet, Ethernet-to-tthe-
hom me or similar names, and th here are differeent variants off it. Fig. 1 shows a sim mplified refereence model with
w an indi-
AOON is standarddized in [1], [2 2], however wiithout mentionning cation of
o the possiblee site locationn for both AO ON and PON
thee term AON itself.
i PON – which is a pooint-to-multipooint equipmment. A) is a site very cloose to the ennd-customer,
(p22mp) architecture - can be b divided intto time division probablly within the building.
b B) is quite near, succh as a street
muultiplexing (TD DM) PON an nd wavelengthh division muulti- cabinetss or small stations serving a small neighhborhood. C)
pleexing (WDM M) PON. Neew commerciial TDM PO ON and D) are larger sitess used for e.g. the
t central office (CO).
depployments are usually of thee types GPON [1] or EPON [2]. [
Othher types of POON have been proposed, andd there are hybrrids
bettween TDM annd WDM PON Ns and even beetween AON and a
POON. Within FSA AN there are also
a major onggoing activities on
nexxt generation PON
P [4].
In literature POON is clearly over-represennted comparedd to
AOON, and oftenn PON is used d as a generic term for optiical
acccess network. One reason for the over--representationn is
proobably that AON
A is less complex – and a thereby less
l
intteresting - fromm an optical point of view w since it “onnly”
com mprise of singlle wavelength point-to-point connections.
In order to prooperly comparre different typpes of AON and a
Fig. 1 Thhe picture schemattically depicts disttances and possiblle site locations
that can be
b used for AON and
a PON equipmennt in current designns
Maanuscript received March 3, 2010. TheT research leadinng to these results has
receeived funding frrom the Europeaan Community's Seventh Framew work
Proogramme under grrant agreements no o 249025 (ICT-OASE) and no 2122352 The difference
d betw
ween C) and D)D is the location where C)
(ICT-ALPHA), and thhe EU structural funds
fu project ANT
T2. is moree distributed inn contrast to D), and herebby it can be
C. P.
P Larsen, A. Gavvler, and K. Wang, are with Acreo Netlab,
N 236 Electrrum, modeledd into differennt cases as model
m 1 and model
m 2. Of
1644 40 Kista, Swedeen. (phone: +46 8 632 7700; e-maill: claus.popp.larseen@
acreeo.se, anders.gavleer@acreo.se, kun.w
wang@acreo.se). course there can be even
e more leveels of these tyypes of sites,

978-1-4244-7986-3/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE

 2

butt it give an inddication of com

mmonly existinng site types. As
A a reach ruural subscriberrs. Observe thaat a long-reachh PON could
tecchnology exam mple sites A, B,
B or C are likkely be populaated well excceed the 20 km m distance. Thee relevant placement of the
witth PON splittters while the PON optical line terminattion PON OLT
O in model 2 is located at a centralized CO
C and with
(OLT) is placed in C or D. An n AON solutioon could popullate the splittters in the rem
mote site. The AON
A access swwitch can be
all sites or just one
o of them wiith Ethernet sw witches dependding placed either
e in the “ccomm. room”, the cabinet / sttation, or the
on the overall nettwork architectture and the poopulation densiity. centralized central office
o site. Thhe most appliicable AON
solutionn in model 2 would
w probablyy be active starr solution by
B. Combined AON/PON
B A FTT TH reference model
m
placing the AON eqquipment at thhe remote site. This is of
B projecting the above model
By m onto a fibre-to-the-ho
f ome course dependent
d on the
t number of fibers
f availablee.
(FTTTH) network architecture we w get to Fig. 2. 2 The access net-
n Note that for AON N that the two architectures homerun
h and
woork stretches from
f the custtomer premisees to the centtral active star
s are very siimilar. The bigggest differencce is whether
offfice. Between these
t two sitess there is a rem mote node, whhich the OL LT is placed inn the field at the remote siite or at the
is either an in-buuilding commu unication room m (Comm. Rooom) central office. For thee active star casse the switch at
a the remote
or a cabinet (sitees A and B in Fig.
F 1). The loocation of the CO C site cann be seen as a first-level aggregation, whereas the
deffines the bouundary betweeen the aggreggation/distributtion switch at the centrall office can be b seen as a second-level
nettwork and thee access netw work. The disttributed CO and a aggregaation – and there may even be more leveels of aggre-
cenntralized CO correspond
c to C)
C and D) in Fig.F 1. The agggre- gation that
t are not inncluded in thee model. The OLTO for the
gattion switch in the CO aggreg gates all the traaffics from acccess homeruun case is the aggregation
a noode in the CO, but it could
nettwork and commmunicates direectly or indirecctly with the eddge very weell be identicall to the OLT inn the active staar case since
node at core nettwork. The corre network couuld be IP/MPL LS, both takkes care of firrst-level aggreggation and perrhaps handle
SDDH, Ethernet, ATM
A or someth hing else, but it
i would typicaally the sam
me amount of ennd users.
be able to carry Ethernet
E trafficc. Evenn though the reeference modell describes FTT TH architec-
tures itt can accomm modate fibre-too-the-building/ccurb/cabinet.
In that case, the correesponding optical network unnit (ONU) is
situatedd at the remotte site whereass the networkk termination
(NT) is situated at cusstomer premisees.

I
III. TERMINOLLOGY
Theree is a very larrge number off terms used within
w optical
access networks. Whhereas the terms related to t PON are
relatively well-defined (but not alw ways consistennt as we will
show here),
h the term
minology relateed to AON is confusing,
poorly defined, and the same terrm is sometim mes used to
describee different archhitectures or technologies.
We will here maake an attemppt to describee PON and
Fig. 2 A reference mo
odel of a FTTH nettwork
particullarly AON accoording to the reeference model in Fig. 2.
M
Model 1 can beb referred to (but not restriccted to) an urbban A. Prroblems with current
c terminoology
sceenario. Since thet aggregation n/distribution network is wiide,
The term passive in passive opptical network is normally
thee central officce functionalitty is distributeed close to user
u
used too emphasize thhat the optical transmission from end to
preemises. Relevaant placementt of PON OL LT equipment in
end is accomplished with no pow wer requiremennt or active
moodel 1 is in the distributted central office (e.g. loocal
electronnic componentss in the field. A problem witth this is that
excchange). The AON OLT eq quipment can be placed in the
the term
minology then depends
d upon where
w certain equipment
e is
remmote site or inn the distributted CO. The “comm.
“ room”” is
placed in relation to the PON OLT T. An AON OL LT does not
maainly applicablle in the case ofo multi-dwelliing buildings. An
have to be placed in the t same location as a PON splitter. One
arcchitecture withh AON equipm ment at the rem mote site is callled
can use a point-to-poinnt fibre infrasttructure and plaace the AON
an “active star”” solution, seee Fig. 3b [5]. In some AO ON
OLT eqquipment in thhe same locatioon as the PON N OLT. What
insstallations there is no switch between the central
c office and
a
can be confusing if doingd so is thhat both solutioons are then
thee home, i.e. each home is connected to t the CO withw
using a passive fibbre infrastructture between the optical
inddividual fibre links. This is caalled a “home run”
r solution, see
networkk termination and a line terminnation, but one is common-
Figg. 3a [5] and can
c be applied if the distancee between hom mes
ly referrred to as passivve while the otther to as activee.
andd CO is not tooo far, if there is room for manny parallel fibrres,
The fibre
f infrastruccture used in alll solutions andd designs are
andd if there is rooom for many trransceivers in the
t CO.
point-too-point, and what
w differs iss that some solutions use
M
Model 2 is moore related to (but not restriicted to) a FTT TH
more fibbres on certainn stretches. Onn the wavelenggth path level
rurral scenario where
w the coveerage of aggreegation or disstri-
the splitter based PON N solutions aree point-to-multtipoint while
buttion network iss limited. Therrefore, the acceess network hass to
WDM PONsP are poinnt-to-point. Thee fact that somme nodes use
be extended longger distance (m maximum 20 km k in model 2)) to
passive and some actiive devices, annd that the soluutions can be
 3

both p2p and p22mp dependin ng on the fibree, optical, TD DM, IV. INPUT FOR TECHNO-ECO
ONOMIC MODE
ELING
Ethhernet, or VLAAN level adds tot the risk of coonfusion. This section outlinnes which equiipment should be included
Current researrch and develo opment are looking into incclu- in a teechno-economiic model, parrticularly withh respect to
dinng more advaanced components in these types of optiical capital expenditure (CAPEX) buut also to some s extent
sysstems. The gooal is to e.g. increase reachh, flexibility and a operatioons expenditure (OPEX).
seccurity on the optical level. Some of theese devices offfer Fig. 3 shows two different AON N designs (acttive star and
opttical amplificaation and otheer introduce dynamics
d on the home ruun) and two diffferent PON deesigns (TDM and
a WDM).
waavelength levell. Common forr these more addvanced solutioons
is that
t they introoduce a need for
fo electrical poower in sites that
t
aree populated wiith such devicees. Dynamic wavelength
w sellec-
tivve devices as optical
o cross-co
onnects (OXCs) and reconfiggu-
rabble optical addd-drop multip plexers (ROA ADMs) moreover
neeed to be acttively configu ured in order for the corrrect
waavelength(s) to be switched to o the correct port. This can leead
to a situation witth active devicces in the fieldd for an otherw
wise
passsive optical neetwork.
B. Definitions of AON and PON
B P
There is clearlly a need to up
pdate the termiinology of optiical
acccess architectuures in order to
t be less connfusing and morem
connsistent. We accknowledge th hat there will be
b no terminoloogy
thaat is hundred percent consisstent, but we aim for a term mi-
nology that is too some level logical when using the woords
passsive and activve.
W have conclluded that the terms
We t PON andd AON shouldd be
preeserved as far as possible sin nce especially the term PON N is
verry commonly used and un nderstood worrldwide, but we
proopose to updatte and clarify which types of o systems beloong
to which categoryy. The wording g that describess this update iss:

Any system thaat includes nodess which main funnction is to forw

ward
steady state traffic, and that does not
n need active configuration too do
so is called a passsive optical nettwork. A system m that needs acttive Fig. 3a) AON
A homerun, b)) AON active star,, c) TDM PON, d)) WDM PON.
connfiguration of suuch nodes in orrder to achieve the same resullt is For all arcchitectures the cusstomer premises arre to the left, the reemote site in
callled an active op
ptical network. the middlle, and the central office to the right;; cf. Fig. 2. The OLLT is placed at
the CO foor architectures a), c), and d). For b) it is placed at the remote site.
Ethernet equipment
e is markked with blue, TDM M equipment is red, and passive
The use of thhe wording “ssteady state” means m that thhere optical coomponents are greeen.
might exist PO ON systems th hat uses dynaamic wavelenngth
sellective devicess for protectionn scenarios andd that there might Observee that only thhe “pure” casees of the architectures are
exiist AON solutiions that uses optical splitterrs e.g. for simiilar includedd. Many variaants exist in thhe field and evven more are
purrposes. With “main functio on” the goal iss to indicate that
t proposeed in literaturee. This is especcially true for WDM PON
e.gg. a splitter is not
n only a min nor sub-system m of that node but which even often apppears in a hyybrid solutionn with TDM
acttually the mainn functionality that the node is based on. PON. However,
H the fiigure should giive a sound bacckground for
U
Using the deffinition above a PON usingg optical ampllifi- comparrison anyway.
cattion is still connsidered to be a PON, and an a AON homerrun Threee types of equiipment are marrked with colouurs in Fig. 3,
arcchitecture withh no equipmen nt in the field is
i still considered and thee placement off these is in acccordance to the t reference
to be an AON. However,
H when n an optical swwitch is used in a model in
i Chapter II. Ethernet
E switchhing equipmentt is shown in
connventional PON N, the architeccture should instead be regardded blue, TDM
T related equipment is shown
s in red, and passive
as an AON – unless the switches s are merely
m used for optical components are a shown in green.
g The linnes represent
prootection. connecttions which in a techno-econnomical analyssis should be
The aim is to use the word active for systtems that incluude translateed to fibres/caables, ducts andd trenching. Not
N explicitly
devvices that needd information on o how to be configured
c andd an shown in the figure are the transsceivers, TRx’’s. For each
acttive configurattion of that deevice in orderr to switch inffor- optical line termination, there is a TRx. In the figure, each
maation. Previoussly, the wordss passive or activea only maade time a line is conneected to a rectangle (Ethernnet or TDM
sennse relative to each other, an nd they neededd to be compaared equipmment), a TRx is involved.
in a similar fibre infrastructure. Whenn analyzing Figg. 3 it is observved that for alll designs any
It should also be clarified that
t the abovee terminology for extendeed aggregation//distribution noodes, core edge nodes, and
AO ON includes devices
d that to
o some extent or fully use L3 core neetwork nodes as a seen in Figg. 2 are left ouut. The blue
(roouters) rather thhan Ethernet fuunctions.
aggregation node shown to the right in Fig. 3 is routinely
included techno-economic models for AON and to some
extend WDM PON, it is normally excluded in TDM PON
studies since it is not part of the PON architecture itself. This
fact is illustrated with the dashed line in Fig. 3c. However, the
aggregation node is just as important for a complete TDM
PON system as for the other architectures. If merely different
TDM PONs were compared the edge node could be neglected,
but in a proper comparison with AON or WDM PON this edge
node should be included to give a correct result.
To conclude this section, the practical use of these models
are to apply equipment (our comparative model, Fig. 3c) onto
a geographic (the reference model, Fig. 2) and end-user
(governs the "amount" of equipment) specific use-case, which
can be furthermore divided into different scenarios, e.g. rural,
urban, green field, etc. This can then be used for e.g. techno-
economical or power efficiency analysis depending on the fig-
ures available for the included equipment, infrastructure etc.
V. COMPARISON OF AON AND PON
In Table 1 AON active star, AON homerun, TDM PON,
and WDM PON are compared with regards to Fig. 3. The
intention is to point at factors that contribute in particular to
the CAPEX but also to a less extent to OPEX.
Table 1 Comparison between AON active star and homerun and TDM and WDM PON
A. CAPEX contributions
Care should be taken with direct comparison of transceivers.
What is included in the table are transceivers between the
OLT and the optical network termination (ONT), but for the
four different designs the power budgets are different. Also,
the number of transceivers in a total system is higher than
indicated in the table: for the AON active star case there are
TRx’s between the OLT and next level aggregation/distri-
bution node; for the TDM PON case there are TRx’s between
the TDM equipment and the switch within the central office
(unless this is handled by the backplane in products that
includes both PON OLT functionality as well as the first level
aggregation functionality); and for all cases there are TRx’s
connecting to the aggregation/distribution network (the two
lines to the right for all cases in Fig. 3). How many extra
TRx’s to include in the calculations depends on the design.
For instance, due to capacity requirements there may be two or
more lines between the AON OLT and the second level
aggregation node in the AON active star case, and there may
be more than two connections to the rest of the
aggregation/distribution network for the switch at the central
office. But as indicated above, whenever a line is terminated
into a rectangle in Fig. 3, there is at least one transceiver.

In a proper comparative techno-economical analysis the
number of end users, N, should be chosen (typically a multiple
of 24 or 32), and from this number - together with bandwidth
requirements and distances between sites – the right amount
and type of transceivers can be selected. If done correctly the
average bandwidth to the end-user and the total bandwidth
towards the core network side should be the same for all
designs considered, e.g. the ones in Fig. 3.
Observe that the WDM PON is very similar to the homerun
solution in the comparison above. This exemplifies the pre-
vious discussion about the naming issues: The words active
and passive can be misleading when one only considers the
equipment in the field.
B. OPEX contributions
The only OPEX factor included in the table is for power
supply in the field for the AON active star case. This is
because it is an important – and in some cases even very
symbolic – difference between PON and AON.
No assumptions have been made concerning take rate and
network scalability – which should of course be taken into
account in a detailed techno-economical analysis.
Other OPEX factors include service provisioning, customer
administration, equipment monitoring, maintenance & repair,
power consumption, etc.
Many of the OPEX factors depend on the management &
control system that follows with the access network and are
not really technology specific. However, for the maintenance
& repair part we would like to point out one aspect: Whereas
Ethernet is typically well known among most network
technicians, PON is not. For a small operator it could be a
disqualifying factor to add another technology requiring
additional training and handling of a new type of spare parts.
However, for a large operator with technicians dedicated to
access network installations this may not be an issue at all.
Concerning power consumption, the electrical power related
to the optics for TDM PON is probably lower than any other
design due to the sharing of the downstream signal. However,
TDM PON requires extra power for the electronics due to the
TDM functionality compared to e.g. AON, and this should
also be taken into consideration. If one wants the total power
consumption one should also add Ethernet functionality to the
TDM PON CPE. Power consumption for WDM PON would
be slightly higher than for AON home run. For AON there is
one switch less in the home run case, but the power budget for
the majority of transceiver pairs is much higher.
VI. SUMMARY
In this paper we presented a high-level comparative study
between active and passive optical networks. The AON active
star and homerun architectures were compared with TDM and
WDM PON.
A revised definition of the terms AON and PON were
proposed that is much more consistent than the conventional
definitions. This new definition even takes into account new,
emerging components such as, e.g., amplifiers and OXCs.
In order to make a proper and just comparison between the
5
different technologies we outlined a reference model that
includes fits both AON and PON designs. This assures that the
proper aspects are actually compared. Often when analyzing
TDM PON architectures the aggregation node is not included,
but when comparing TDM PON with AON and WDM PON
this piece of equipment should indeed be regarded in the
studies.
In literature and particularly within marketing material there
is a lack of consistent definitions for AON, and in some cases
one term can mean different things. Based on this reference
model it is possible to characterize the different types of AON
designs and thus make fair comparisons.
The table comparing the various optical access technologies
is believed to be a helpful tool for the CAPEX part of a
techno-economic analysis. For the OPEX factors we have
been less specific but at least mentioned different aspects that
should be included and where special attention should be
shown.
In a real life deployment the results of a techno-economic
study of the access network itself are of course important, but
it may not be the deciding factor. For instance, a municipality
can make a political decision that all its citizens should be
offered broadband over fibre. The background for such a
decision could typically be a vision that this would benefit the
community as a whole and attract more businesses. The
municipality would typically choose a technology that makes
the network as open as possible to different operators and
service providers, which could favour AON. Indeed, this is
often the case for e.g. Swedish municipality networks. A
municipality does not have the same requirements of return on
investment as an operator since FTTH can be seen more like a
long term investment in infrastructure. Also, at least in the
European Union it is often possible to get either national or
EU funding for infrastructure projects, whereby the most
costly part of an FTTH project – trenching – is subsidized.
Another example is that for large operators the FTTH
installation could be integrated in a greater deal with an
equipment vendor, where perhaps the access equipment is
only a minor part. Thereby the operator may not pay the real
price of the equipment. Also, a large vertically integrated
operator would typically want a solution that restricts
openness (read: TDM PON) in order to keep business to itself.
This can be seen as a natural (and completely legitimate)
attempt to counteract or at least delay impact from the
regulatory bodies which across Europe wish to open the
networks.
REFERENCES
[1] ITU-T Recommendation G.985, 100 Mbit/s point-to-point Ethernet
based optical access system
[2] IEEE 802.3ah Ethernet in the First Mile Task Force:
http://www.ieee802.org/3/ah
[3] ITU-T Recommendation G.984.1, Gigabit-capable Passive Optical
Networks (GPON): General characteristics
[4] Full service access network, FSAN: www.fsanweb.com
[5] A. Banerjee and M. Sirbu, “Towards Technologically and Competitively
Neutral Fiber to the Home (FTTH) Infrastructure”, 31st Research
Conference on Communication, Information and Internet Policy,
Washington DC, US, Sep. 2003