An Experimental SDN Proposal over Legacy GPONs to Allow Real-Time Service and Residential Network Reconfiguration

In this paper we propose an experimental SDN (Software Defined Networking) solution over legacy GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network) equipment that allow a control of the network configuration and its services. On the one hand, the proposal permits to move certain global bandwidth and service configuration policies outside the GPON so that they can be managed centrally by an SDN controller. In legacy PONs the real-time bandwidth allocation process is made inside the network infrastructure cycle by cycle between the OLT (Optical Line Terminal) and the ONTs (Optical Network Terminals) so the network performance could be adversely affected due to the latency between the SDN controller and the PON. In contrast, the control of some global DBA strategies by SDN techniques could lead to better network and management configuration and therefore our proposal is able to dynamically adjust these policies according to the real-time Quality of Service (QoS) requirements of residential users. On the other hand, the designed SDN proposal permits network subscribers to control the performance of their residential homes. In this way, they can set constraints and dynamically customize the bandwidth of their connected devices in a very transparent and efficient way.