Analysis of quality of service provisioning in passive optical networks

Today, tremendous pressure falls on the local networks to provide customers with access to the global telecom infrastructure. To ease this pressure, various versions of broadband access networks have been developed. Among them, the optical access networks provide the most promising immediate and future solution to the access problem. These optical access networks are mostly implemented today in the form of passive optical networks (PONs). This paper analyzes the quality of service (QoS) provided by the PONs. We start with an introduction to the principle of PON operation, the architectures, topologies, protocols and standards, design issues, and network management and services. Through this introduction, we consider provisioning such QoS parameters as bandwidth allocation, delay (response) time, security, and availability. We also discuss PON lifeline service and survivability and compare the QoS provisioning in ATM-based and Ethernet-based PONs.