Massive deployment of FTTH fiber network causes protection to FTTH network a crucial need. Most FTTH access networks are protected from failure by having redundant network equipments. These are not economical approaches, as the redundant systems are not efficiently utilized by the network. In this paper, the authors propose a protection method where redundant equipments are not required and protection is provided to end user through sharing of bandwidth during the failure time. A protection control unit and an optical switch is employed connecting four Optical Line Terminations (OLTs) with each one serving only 32 Optical Network Units (ONUs). Protection control unit collects information of ONUs served by each OLT and when an OLT fails, it will instruct an active OLT to serve its original ONUs together with the ONUs served by the failed OLT. It also provides information of ONUs served and inform the involved 64 ONUs of their new timeslot allocation. Then, the signal is switched from failed OLT's line to the instructed active OLT. The results show that through sharing of bandwidth, adequate protection is provided without redundant equipment for more than one OLT failure.

Date Published: 5 March 2008
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 7009, Second International Conference on Advanced Optoelectronics and Lasers, 700918 (5 March 2008); doi: 10.1117/12.793864

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7009:
Second International Conference on Advanced Optoelectronics and Lasers
Igor A. Sukhoivanov; Vasily A. Svich; Yuriy S. Shmaliy, Editor(s)