GPON: A New Opportunity to Improve Productivity, Reduce Costs and Go Green

For building owners, architects and networking consultants involved in either erecting new buildings or completing significant upgrades, creating an optical LAN with gigabit passive optical network (GPON) architecture is an important technology that addresses three critical issues:  enhancing productivity, reducing CapEx and OpEx costs and meeting new and sometimes stringent environmental standards. While GPON may not be appropriate for every project, it should be considered as a viable approach to achieve these objectives.

What Is GPON Architecture?

GPON is a medium where fiber is “passively” split to connect multiple end users. GPON equipment does not require electrical power, substantially reducing heat and saving energy.

The telecommunications industry has deployed GPON for years, it is a stable, proven, effective technology.  Today, innovative system architects are turning to GPON for campus and in-building environments.

GPON architecture is different than the Active Ethernet widely in use today.  In an Active Ethernet architecture, fiber travels between a series of routers and switches that are powered.  It also has a distance limitation of approximately 300 feet.  These characteristics drive up costs, increase the number of points of failure, and the amount of space and power required.

GPON Advantages for In-building Projects

Only recently have network architects considered building optical LANs with GPON for that “last 100 feet;” i.e., the distance from the node or premises to the end user.  The advantages of adopting GPON for that final connection to the end user are many:

• Enables Short- and Long-Term Cost Savings – Multiple studies have shown that utilizing GPON in an optimal network can result in up to 70 percent lower CapEx, up to 80 percent lower power consumption and as much as 90 percent less space utilization.  Ten-year total cost of ownership (TCO) analyses have shown lower OpEx costs than Active Ethernet. 
• Contributes to a Comprehensive “Green” Strategy – Lower power consumption translates to lower carbon emissions and a lower carbon footprint.  GPON can help all buildings reduce power consumption.  In particular, it can helpU.S.government buildings meet the executive order mandate to reduce energy consumption by 30 percent by 2015.  It also can impact a company’s LEED certification levels. 
• Future–proofs the LAN Infrastructure – GPON ultra-fast broadband connections are delivered over a fiber infrastructure, instead of Active Ethernet using copper media. This fiber in-building cabling has longer life, smaller, lighter, stronger, better bend radius, higher bandwidth capacity, longer reach, less susceptible to interference, faster connector solutions, longer life and less expensive when compared to traditional copper media. .  It also provides gigabit-speed bandwidth to the desktop, meeting nearly any end user’s need to download or stream video and/or other very large files.
• Facilitates Building High-performance Converged Networks – Combining voice, data and video networks into one architecture results in CapEx and OpEx savings.  IT teams can easily migrate between Analog POTS and VoIP for voice capabilities.  GPON can easily accommodate a wide range of RF video, IP video and videoconferencing options.   GPON can support existing wireless access points (WAP) and allows more flexible WAP placement.  IT teams can also easily integrate building automation security and building sensor systems.As building owners, architects and networking consultants continue to search for solutions that enable to both offer better services to their clients and save money, optical networks incorporation GPON architecture provide an outstanding alternative.  It can help these professionals successfully navigate the “rocks” of improving productivity, reducing costs and contributing to a “greener” infrastructure.