Standardization in PONs: Status and possible directions

The actual growth in the number of technologies and details which can surpass certain requirement is high. This is quite relevant in standardization activities, especially in access networks, where any technology, which can improve even if incrementally the performance without increasing the cost, will have strong impact in the general media and will surely put a lot of pressure in the service providers, therefore in the system vendors and finally in the component fabs. This environment is forcing the rapid standards production and revisions in their internal processes. In this paper a revision on the standards evolution, concepts and processes is made and from there the actual status and trends are going to be presented and some hints on possible paths will be drawn.