WDM-PON with Wavelength-Routed ODN – Pros’n’Cons

Abstract:
Recently, wavelength-routed – filtered – WDM-PON re-attained interest. In ITU-T, WDM-PON is standardized in Study Group 15, Questions 2 and 6. This relates to the draft recommendation G.metro, which exclusively considers wavelengthrouted infrastructure, and to the draft recommendation G.multi and the G.989 series of recommendations on NG-PON2. These allow wavelength-routed as well as power-split Optical Distribution Networks. This option leads to some significant differences for the resulting WDM-PON. Power splitting enables support of legacy fiber plant and wavelength-agnostic bandwidth provisioning, whereas wavelength routing allows higher reach, lower cost of the WDM transceivers, and simpler control of the linear crosstalk which occurs in multichannel systems.