Transmission convergence layer framing in XG-PON1

In this paper, a mechanism of the transmission convergence (TC) layer framing in XG-PON1 is proposed. It enhances the existing G-PON TC (GTC) protocol system by employing the concept of word alignment. The major benefits include simplified design, extended support to more users, and easy implementation. Performance comparison with the existing GTC shows the efficiency improvement of the proposed word-aligned framing mechanism in various scenarios of the next generation optical access networks.