Converged access network infrastructure based on Virtual PONs

The continuous evolution in mobile access technologies supporting faster data rates lead to dramatic increases of OPEX backhaul costs. It seems inevitable that the edge of the telecom network will be based on a combination of a wireless part, but also fiber for adequate capacity which is not possible with the wireless infrastructure alone. In this light, PONs offer the significant advantage of cost-effective port and traffic consolidation particularly in their TDM variant. Recently advanced PON technologies based on WDM have appeared. The additional feature of WDM-PONs is their increased flexibility in dynamic resource allocation. In this paper we review different architectures that have been proposed in the literature allowing for dynamic resource allocation via the configuration of Virtual PONs. A virtual PON (VPON) can be created for (potentially dynamically formed) subscriber groups using multiple waves on a single fiber potentially increasing utilization and scalability leading to a converged network architecture.