As the use of mobile applications and services that require increasingly more bandwidth continues to grow, wireless service providers must find cost-effective and efficient methods for meeting the bandwidth demand. Legacy transport networks are no longer capable of adequately serving today’s cell sites. Newer technologies such as GPON, WDM-PON, and Ethernet over CWDM/DWDM are all well-suited to cost-effectively address the growing bandwidth needs of wireless service providers. Regardless of the technology used, Fiberstore product is an integral part of the solution.
GPON
While GPON has been adopted as a technology of choice in high-speed access networks for inexpensive residential service delivery, more recently, it has begun to spread into business access. With the ability to deliver up to 10Gbps per GPON OLT port, it can also be a cost-effective technology for delivering higher bandwidth to cell towers.
Figure 1: GPON Network
Whether the GPON splitters are collocated with the OLT or distributed in the field, it is likely that a multiple of splitter modules would be needed to handle each serving area. To aid with this, the SplitLight HD can provide up to 16 GPON splitters in a single, 1RU chassis, while traditional solutions can only provide a single GPON splitter in the same footprint. In addition, legacy LGX solutions would require at least 4RU to deliver the same density.
WDM-PON
Building on the advantages of GPON, shared infrastructure and a single OLT transponder, WDM-PON provides the added advantage of delivering a dedicated wavelength to each GPON ONT. WDM-PON does not use a splitter. Instead, an Arrayed Waveguide Grating (AWG) is used to multiplex and de-multiplex wavelengths between the feeder fibers and distribution fibers. The result is dedicated bandwidth and a more secure network for each subscriber, or in this case, cell tower. Another advantage of WDM-PON is the ability to add/drop wavelengths at intermediate cell towers that lie between mobile switching centers.
Figure 2: WDM-PON Network
As with GPON splitters, it is likely that multiple AWGs would be required at both ends of the WDM-PON network. The SplitLight HD can also house up to 12 AWGs in a single, 1RU chassis. In addition, the SplitLight HD has the flexibility to also house passive OADMs for the intermediate add/drops.