A Novel Hybrid WDM/TDM PON Architecture Using Cascaded AWGs and Tunable Components

The paper introduces a novel architecture for optical access networks that simultaneously provides complete flexibility and security. At the same time, the distribution architecture is completely passive. Unlike the other architectures in literature, the proposed architecture does not possess a security-flexibility tradeoff. Complete flexibility allows to switch OFF appropriate number of active components at low network loads making this design a green technology. The discussed architecture has a long reach, which is independent of the number of users in the network.