Super-PON: an evolution for access networks [Invited]

Passive optical networks (PONs) have been widely used in access networks and are today the access technology of choice for operators, especially when they need to build new infrastructure. Significant effort has been put in place across the years to scale the speed of passive optical networks. The super-PON concept has also been proposed in order to scale reach and customer aggregation of PONs. However, it did not produce any standardization efforts nor significant commercial deployments. In November 2018, the IEEE 802.3 Working Group formed the P802.3cs "Super-PON" Task Force to standardize a flavor of super-PON able to support an increased optical reach of up to 50 km and an expanded customer coverage of up to 1024 customers per fiber over a passive optical distribution network. A project with near identical objectives was later started in ITU-T Q2/SG15. This paper presents the latest updates from these industry standardization efforts, with special attention to the activity of the IEEE P802.3cs Task Force, and the technical reasoning behind some of the key decisions that have been made. (C) 2020 Optical Society of America.