Photonic components for future fiber access networks

Fiber based access networks are recognized as promising technologies for solving broadband bandwidth bottlenecks. TDM-PONs, which are passive and non-reconfigurable, are the most widely deployed type of fiber access networks today. However, due to their passive nature, TDM-PONs encounter several issues such as inflexible coverage, lack of intelligence for control, and inability to counter security attacks. Based on current issues in optical access networks, we propose a novel non-volatile, reconfiguration node. The proposed remote node can reconfigure the network to adapt to varying degrees of deployment conditions and/or network attacks. Moreover, the proposed remote node incorporates a novel quasi-passive device that reconfigures using remotely supplied energy from CO. This quasi-passive device technology does not consume any energy once it reconfigures into a new latching states. Therefore, the proposed remote node has very low energy consumption and does not require local power supply to preserve the passivity of the passive distribution network. In particular, the proposed quasi-passive device technology is implemented using a novel tri-state Micro- Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) actuator structure and the device demonstrates very small energy consumption requirement to enable energy be remotely supplied from CO. Also, the MEMS structure is shown to demonstrate acceptable insertion losses to makes it suitable for flexible energy distribution. Simulation study shows the proposed reconfigurable device would outperform traditional passive splitter in terms of maximum number of supportable users under realistic deployment conditions.