FSAN - Full Service Access Network

FSAN News

Here's what's happening lately within FSAN:

For information on the sixth FSAN G-PON Plugtest, you can find the joint ETSI/FSAN Press Release of the Torino Event by clicking the following headline:
Full ONU Management & Control Interface Tests Positive

An FSAN-sponsored GPON interoperability test event was a highlight of the May 2007 meeting of FSAN group. The FSAN (Full Service Access Network) group is an affiliation of international network operators and telecom vendors. The event was held from the 7^th to the 11^th of May in Lannion, organized by ETSI and France Telecom. The event involved 15 GPON equipment vendors including Alcatel-Lucent, Alphion, Broadlight, Calix, Cambridge, ECI, Ericsson, Freescale, Huawei, Iamba, TXP Corp., PMC Sierra, Nokia-Siemens, Terawave and ZTE. The main goal of this Plugtest was to demonstrate the interoperability of GPON equipment at the service layer in a full OMCI (ONT Management & Control Interface) context. Detailed test cases were carried out to verify the provisioning of services in a multi-vendor environment. The ITU G.984 GPON (Gigabit-capable Passive Optical Network) standard enables line rates of 2.5 Gbps in the downstream direction (central office to customer) and 1.2 Gbps in the upstream direction (customer to central office). This allows network operators to efficiently handle bandwidth requirements for services like HD IPTV, online-gaming, Ethernet services, VoIP and TDM over fibre.

FSAN OAN Working Group meeting 2007 hosted by Siemens Networks - The FSAN Optical Access Network (OAN) Working Group’s first meeting of 2007 has been held in Munich, Feb 6-8 hosted by Siemens Networks. Significant progress was made on FTTP systems including specifications that allow coexistence and smooth migration between generations of PON in operator’s networks, according to Kent McCammon, the Chair of FSAN OAN WG. Also, plans were advanced towards GPON OLT to ONT interoperability test events in 2007. Discussions started for the new study topic of optical layer supervision in G-PON systems.

\The FSAN together with the ITU have been hosting a series of B-PON and G-PON interoperability events over the years. The most recent G-PON interoperability event, which was hosted by the independent test laboratory, KTL in Santa Clara, Calif. (September 5-7, 2006), involved voice, data and IPTV testing between the following system vendors: Calix, Cambridge Industries Group, Entrisphere, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Huawei, Iamba Networks, Mitsubishi Electric, NEC, Siemens, Terawave. Shenick provided IPTV and data testing with Quality of Experience (QoE) and performance assessment. Spirent provided its triple play test solution to verify voice, video, and data service performance and functionality with 'real world' scenarios. Corning provided the complete Optical Distribution Network (ODN) for the event, including the optical fiber, cable, splitters, cabinet, terminal distribution system, and connectorized drop cables. See the following press release for a complete description of this latest interoperability event.

Following the conclusion of the G-PON CTS work in FSAN on February 2006 after a one year collaboration (http://www.fsanweb.org/cts.asp), key agreements among the participating operators will be published in IEEE Communications Magazine, October 2006 (A. Cauvin et al., "Common Technical Specification of the G-PON System among Major Worldwide Access Carriers"). Included in the article are agreements regarding line rate, optical budget, physical reach, and minimum supported split ratio. The agreement between a number of major worldwide access carriers on key options for G-PON is expected to benefit the industry by narrowing the focus of G-PON system development.

During last FSAN meeting at Kansas City hosted by Sprint and Entrisphere (14th and 15th of March 2005), eight operator members (BT, DT, FT, NTT, SBC, Sprint, Telus and TI) decided to create a "GPON CTS" Task Group. The objective of this Common Technical Specification (CTS) Task Group is to identify the broadest common system specification consensus based on the GPON standard series (ITU-T G.984.x). The aim is to reduce the number of implementation options and thus ease the implementers work and speed up early order volumes. The first decision taken by the "GPON CTS" Task Group was to give the information that 1.25/2.5Gbps (US/DS) is the preferred linerates combination. See the following presentation for a complete description of the decisions taken.

Multiple vendors of broadband passive optical network (BPON) equipment have demonstrated interoperability of carrier quality telephony services at the San Ramon meeting of FSAN on September 27, 2004. The multi-vendor PON systems were used to transport voice signals between the ONTs' RJ-11 POTS interfaces and GR-303 type switch interfaces on the OLTs. Voice band signaling operation, aural sound quality, and calling throughput were shown to fully meet service requirements.

The first trial of B-PON interoperability were performed within FSAN OAN-WG during March 9-11 2004 as a B-PON conformance test, with the participation of 9 vendors. Test results are summarized in the following presentation, which also appears under the documents section.

In 2/2004 the ITU-T has ratified the final standard in the set of GPON standards, G.984.3, defining the protocol related aspects of GPON.

ITU-T has approved the new G-PON standards. The standards are known as ITU-T Recommendations G.984.1 and G.984.2. G.984.1, which cover systems with nominal line rates of 1.25 Gbit/s and 2.5 Gbit/s in the downstream (Central Office to customer) direction and 155 Mbit/s, 622 Mbit/s, 1.5 Gbit/s and 2.5 Gbit/s in the upstream (customer to Central Office) direction. See ITU Press Release.