The New Generation Of Fiber Broadband Technology - 50G PON

F5G And F5G-A

In February 2020, ETSI promoted a Fixed communication network technology system based on 10G PON+FTTR, Wi-Fi 6, 200G optical transmission/convergence, OXC and other technologies, and named it F5G, that is, The 5th generation Fixed networks.

 

F5G is the product of the fixed network industry's "copying operation" to 5G. It simplifies the intergenerational naming method, packages some technologies, and facilitates marketing and promotion.

Table 1: Comparison of F1G-F5G differences.

Since last year, the entire communications industry has been discussing A half-generation evolution based on 5G- 5G-A. The fixed network industry side, also in accordance with the model, followed by a 5G-A, as a small intergenerational evolution of F5G.

In November last year, ETSI officially released the "F5G Advanced Generation Definition", which clearly proposed the generational standard and key characteristics of 5G-A. According to ETSI, FGG-A adds three new features (GAO, RRL, OSV) to the three existing features of F5G (eFBB, FFC, GRE). As shown in the picture below:

Figure 1: Six features of 5G-A.

According to the idea, F5G-A can bring 10 times the bandwidth, 10 times the fiber connection density, 10 times the energy efficiency, 99.9999% reliability, meter-level precision perception, sub-millisecond delay and L4 level autonomous network and a series of capabilities to better meet the user's broadband access needs. Further achieve "Fibre to Everywhere".

Figure 2:Subsequent release plans for F5G.

50G PON Standard Evolution

F5G-A is A very important evolution. The 50G PON is the key enabling technology for this evolution. Next, let's look at how the standard for 50G PON was born. In the previous article, we talked about the 10G PON era, which is our current gigabit broadband era.

Figure 3: Evolution of PON network.

10G is not the end of PON technology. Since around 2012, the industry has agreed that PON technology needs to evolve to higher rates. At that time, there were two kinds of evolution ideas, one was to improve the single-wavelength rate, and the other was to use multi-wave superposition.

 

The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) took the lead. They built a NG-EPON that implemented 25G downlink and 10/25G uplink on a single fiber, and supported compatibility with 10G EPON. 25Gbps, through multi-wavelength superposition and channel binding technology, 50Gbps or even 100Gbps rates can be achieved.

 

In July 2015, IEEE initiated the development of a standard for 25G/50G/100G EPON technology, named IEEE 802.3ca. Later, considering that 100G was too difficult, it was deleted, and only 25G and 50G were retained.

Figure 4:IEEE 802.3ca

Look at FSAN and ITU-T.

After the completion of the XG(S)-PON standard, FSAN soon started the standard study of NG-PON2 (NG-PON1 is the previous 10G PON, including 10G GPON and 10G EPON), hoping to achieve 40G downlink and 40G/10G uplink.

 

At the time, the mainstream technical alternatives for NG-PON2 included high-speed TDMA-PON, TWDM-PON, OFDM-PON, and WDM-PON.

 

After analysis and comparison, in April 2012, FSAN decided to adopt TWDM-PON technology as the implementation of NG-PON2.

 

TWDM is TDM+WDM, time division multiplexing + wavelength division multiplexing. TWDM-PON adopts 4/8 wavelength superposition mode, single wavelength 10G TDM, can achieve 4×10Gbps rate.

 

This scheme, developed by ITU-T as the G.989.x series of standards, was finalized in 2015.After the standard was completed, few operators adopted the scheme. Because of this way of wavelength superposition, it will bring the high cost of tunable optical devices, and the system maturity of the solution is not enough. Later, with the rapid maturity and large-scale application of the high-speed Ethernet industry chain, this superposition architecture of N*10G is increasingly not optimistic. The industry has gradually strengthened its determination to develop in the direction of single-wave high speed. In other words, don't "TDM+WDM", just "TDM". If you do a single wave, 100G is too difficult, and 25G improvement is not obvious (soon to upgrade, waste of money and time). Then, the best choice, of course, is 50G PON.

Figure 5: Comparison of 25G/50G/100G highlights.

In February 2018, under the joint proposal of the Chinese industry, ITU-T SG15 Q2 officially launched a project for the single-channel 50G TDM PON series standard, named "G.SP (G.Higher Speed PON)", and it is planned to have commercial capability in 2025.

Figure 6: The development of PON network.

It is worth mentioning that Nokia is more persistent on 25G. After the ITU-T project was blocked, they went to another place and established the 25G Symmetric PON Multi-Source Protocol (25GS-PON MSA) in October 2020. Many companies have joined, including large companies such as AT&T. Let's go back to 50G PON. When the 50G PON standard is established, it mainly includes 4 parts, as shown in the following table:

Table 2:50G PON standard

On 23 April 2021, the ITU-T SG15 Plenary adopted 50G PON standards, including: G.9804.1 Amd1 (requirements), G.9804.2 (Common protocol layer), and G.9804.3 (Physical layer standard). In order to support the coexistence of multiple generations of PON technologies, ITU-T also developed a standard called G.9805. In summary, the following table is shown:

Table 3:G.9805 standard

From 2021 to 2023, the 50G PON standard has been studied and revised one after another. In 2023, the ITU-T SG15 Plenary adopted G.9804.3 Amd.2, marking the completion of the 50G PON international standard system.

Figure 7: The development of G.9805 standard.

The multi-generation coexistence standard (G.9805) was also largely completed during this period, laying the foundation for the smooth evolution of the standard to 50G-PON between different generations. 50G PON supports the compatibility and coexistence of 10G EPON, which is conducive to the normalization of IEEE routes and ITU-T routes, and has great benefits for the industrial chain. Although IEEE still hopes to adhere to its own Ethernet line and not be "incorporated", as the world's largest PON market, the will of China's industrial power is difficult to be violated. Converging to the ITU-T line is the general trend.)

Figure 8: The development of G.9805 standard.

To further enhance PON's capabilities, two more standards are in progress. One is G.up.ponlatency for low latency, and the other is G.up.ponslicing for slicing. In terms of domestic industry standards, CCSA TC6 is responsible for formulating. At present, 50G PON overall, physical layer, TC layer and other series of row standards have been released, test standards have been established, is expected to be developed by 2024-2025; 50G-PON single-mode, 10G/50G dual-mode row standard has been submitted for approval, G/XG(S)/50G three-mode is expected to be developed by 2024-2025.

Table 4:YD/T 4300.1/2/3-2023

All in all, the international standard of single-wave 50G PON (50G TDM PON) and the domestic industry standard have been basically ready, creating conditions for the comprehensive promotion of commercial use of the upstream and downstream industry chain.

 

Application Scenario Of A 50G PON.

50G PON brings ten gigabit access speed, so we must ask, what is its application scenario?

 

At present, the industry's definition of 50G PON application scenarios is still concentrated in home broadband, small and medium-sized enterprises, parks, industrial and other scenarios. Home broadband, mainly to meet the 8K (and above) ultra-high-definition video, AR/VR/XR, naked eye 3D and other needs.

 

Generally speaking, the connection bandwidth of a single XR device is not high (380Mbps or so), and 10G PON is enough. The adoption of 50G PON is more for the need for multiple concurrent, that is, multiple people use XR devices at the same time. For example, multiple family members participate in XR game interaction.

Small and medium-sized enterprises, mainly for cloud desktop office, video conferencing, enterprise cloud disk and other purposes. China is now pushing the special action of digital empowerment of small and medium-sized enterprises, and 50G PON can become the base of digital transformation for small and medium-sized enterprises. Park scenarios, such as large enterprises, hospitals, schools, factories, and ports. In schools, there are dozens of students in a classroom, and many people use VR teaching at the same time, which will have a demand for access bandwidth.

Figure 9:VR teaching.

The hospital scene is more complex. In addition to traditional digital medical records and so on, there are some new applications of large bandwidth networks.

 

Examples include image viewing and digital viewing. Hospital imaging equipment has a large amount of data, including multimodal imaging, interventional imaging and so on. Through the 10 gigabit optical network such as 50G PON, it can help medical personnel to view and transfer data.

 

Now operators are pushing FTTR. In the future, with the increase of access bandwidth, it may gradually enter the FTTD stage.

 

D is Device, that is, the optical fiber will be directly connected to the user terminal (such as desktop computers, laptops, home appliances, etc.), completely eliminating the network cable.

Figure 10: Schematic diagram of FTTx access network.

Then there is the industrial manufacturing scenario, which is the focus of the current 50G PON development, mainly for data acquisition, industrial control, automation and human-computer interaction and other subdivisions. These subdivision scenarios have strict requirements on the transmission delay and security of the network. In the industrial sector, 50G PON is likely to further push fiber from daily office networks to production management networks and production field networks, and eventually to intra-machine connectivity.

Figure 11：Industrial robot.

It will bring about the transition from FTTR to FTTM. M is for Machine, which means machine. It's a little bit like FTTD. Now, there's also the idea of FTTThing, fiber optics to everything. In addition to the above scenarios, the 50G PON for the backpass carrying of 5G small base stations has also become an option (FTTCell, fiber to the base station).

If the spectral ratio of 1:64 is allowed, the 8-port 50G PON line card can support 512 5G small base stations. If each 5G small base station is 1Gbps according to a single port of 40Gbps, it means that 50G PON single port can meet the backpass needs of 40 5G small base stations. It is sufficient for the general interior coverage of buildings.

Commercial Development Of 50G PON

In recent years, domestic operators have carried out some pilot work for 50G PON technology.

 

On March 27, 2023, China Telecom Research Institute completed the industry's first 50G-PON industrial application pilot in Jiangsu Yongding Opto-Electronics, taking the lead in adopting 50G-PON/XG-PON dual-mode all-optical technology, verifying the 50G-PON in industrial AOI (Automated Optical Inspection). Automatic optical inspection) quality inspection and plant digital management business scenarios.

 

In November 2023, China Mobile successfully completed the world's first symmetric 50G PON fixed mobile access application demonstration in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. Beijing Unicom completed FGG-A 50G PON innovation application verification. Beijing Telecom completed the pilot project verification.

 

In March 2024, Shanghai Telecom took the lead in building 5G- the world's first 50G-Pon-based "10 Gigabit Cloud Broadband Demonstration area", which realized the immediate use of 10 gigabit access terminals on demand, and can provide A series of applications such as 3D light perception, 3D/XR cloud live broadcast, and extreme cloud interaction.

 

In 2024-2025, the 50G PON will enter the commercial initial stage. According to preliminary predictions, 50G PON will enter the stage of large-scale commercial use around 2027. By 2030, it will reach a peak.

According to Omdia's forecast, 50G PON port shipments will maintain a CAGR of 200% per year between 2024 and 2028, and become a mainstream broadband technology by 2028.

 

Dell'Oro Group also predicts that total 50G PON device revenue will grow from less than $3 million to $1.5 billion from 2023 to 2027.

 

By the way, the next generation of 50G-PON, that is, the ITU-T standard G.VHSP.sup (VHSP=Very High Speed PON) of B50G-PON (super 50G PON), has been proposed in September 2022 and is currently in the early stages of promotion.

END

That's the basic introduction to the 50G PON. The development of 50G PON (5G-A) cannot be separated from user demand. At present, 50G PON, like 5G, lacks a convincing explosion application scenario, and is not a very needed technology. Compared to 5G, the biggest advantage of 50G PON is cost. Although it will cost significantly more than 10G PON, it will still be much lower than 5G. By pairing with Wi-Fi 7, 50G PON is easier to provide users with low-cost, high speed, low latency Internet access capabilities, and is more easily accepted by the market.

 

 

 

FCST - Better FTTx, Better Life.

We have been designing, manufacturing and supplying passive components for fiber optical networks since 2003. Everything we do in FCST is designed to provide efficient, simple and innovative solutions to solve complicated tasks.

We offer 4 solutions

lFTTH ODN Solution

lUnderground Cable Installation Solution

lAerial Cable Installation Solution

lFiber Tools & Test Solution

As a FTTx solution supplier, we can also do ODM according to project. We will continue to innovate and contribute more to the construction of the global optical fiber network.