Multi-OLT PON-based Access Network Supporting 5G Wireless Transport and FTTH Services

Artificial intelligence (AI) assisted embryonic applications, virtual reality (VR), and the Internet of Things (IoT) supplemented a massive volume of broadband traffic. Public interests are moving towards mobile broadband, while the increasing bandwidth and latency requirements continue to drive fiber deployments higher and deeper. Optical wireless convergence is spirited to support this situation. The evolution of fronthaul in the fifth generation (5G) mobile networks has mirrored the increasing reliance on an economic, scalable, high bandwidth, and low latency optical transport. Passive optical network (PON) is under contemplation to be the desired fronthaul to support newer 5G technologies. This paper proposes a multi-optical line terminal (OLT) based 50 Gb/s PON to support 5G fronthaul. This architecture uses PON infrastructure with a simple extension. Pulser23 dynamic wavelength and bandwidth allocation (DWBA) is designed to integrate 5G fronthaul transport with ongoing fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) facilities. Simulation outcomes prove that the DWBA can cope with the delay constraints of 250 μs imposed by 5G fronthaul while successfully transmitting FTTH services.