Techno-economic feasibility study of different WDM/TDM PON architectures

Introducing a WDM dimension on the top of a TDM PON system is a natural evolution to increase the capacity of the network, but this can also offer additional flexibility options. Different WDM/TDM PON flavours are compared to each other in terms of flexibility at the remote node and/or the ONU side. The considered architectures are then evaluated from a techno-economic point of view for a 10G technology, taking into account reasonable target costs for the optical components. In general the increased flexibility at the remote nodes has shown to have a limited influence on the cost, which opens good perspectives for more advanced WDM/TDM PON technologies. However, adding full flexibility in the optical layer at the ONU side will be too costly in the coming years, as the cost-per-user can be doubled or even more, compared to a fully “static” solution.