By Zhensheng (Steve) Jia, Ph.D., L. Alberto Campos, Ph.D, Haipeng Zhang, Ph.D., Chris Stengrim, Curtis Knittle, Ph.D.; CableLabs
A passive optical network (PON) that has the benefits of point-to-multipoint passive topology for highly efficient fiber utilization has become the dominant optical access architecture for the operators in the current fiber to the premise (FTTP) deployments. The global PON equipment market is forecast to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.3% from 2020 to 2027, approaching $16bn in 2027, from $7bn in 2020. FTTP infrastructure builds are gaining momentum in most countries, with the global fiber access household penetration forecast exceeding 47% by 2026 [1], representing more than 1.1 billion subscriptions. Furthermore, 10G FTTP (and higher) is offered to residential subscribers by more than 55 communications service providers (CSPs). Ever-increasing bandwidth demand is the key driver for fiber access, along with demand for low-latency, reduced jitter, and improved quality of experience (QoE) by VR-based games and cloud applications [1].