Even as DSL becomes the globally dominant, mass-market, broadband access technology, a potential DSL-killer is steadily creeping up on the market. This is the PON – the Passive Optical Network. Video is a major aspect of PONs and a key reason why telcos, keen to get into triple-play converged services to offset collapsing POTS revenues, are beginning to turn to PONs as a way of getting fiber bandwidth to the home.

Telcos and industry pundits have been talking of mass deployment of fiber in the access network for years, of course, and a whole alphabet soup of acronyms has appeared as the number of network approaches and technologies has multiplied. Generically, they take the form of Fiber to the Something (such as Home, Premises, Building, Business, Curb, Node) – or FTTx. What’s become so interesting recently is the adoption of PONs for real FTTx rollouts and the standardization of two improved and faster PON types – Ethernet PON (EPON) and Giga PON (GPON).