Upstream characteristics of tunable WDM-PON system for deployment in Malaysia

The evolution of access network technology utilizing Passive Optical Network (PON) has provided a means for high speed broadband to be effectively implemented in Malaysia through FTTH technology. As the bandwidth demand and number of subscribers is increasing, WDM-PON is considered the best candidate for future deployment. On the same note, this paper presents the development of tunable 16 channels WDM-PON system, focusing on the colourless ONU's uplink signal transmission. This system is utilizing a software controlled tunable transceiver in both OLT and ONU, thus would enable colourless mode of operation. A 16 channels wavelength plan has also been defined for the upstream and downstream communication. Besides that, an athermal AWG is introduced in the network for wavelengths multi/de-multiplexing operation. An experimental setup has been made to simulate an optical modulated upstream signal from the colourless ONU to the OLT. The resulting upstream signals will be analyzed and characterized based on the availability, distance, optical received power as well as its quality on BER and the eye diagram. The results show that the ability of the developed tunable WDM-PON system to operate at 2.5Gbps for the upstream transmission and should be able to support the future plan of WDM-PON deployment in Malaysia.