The Relationship between Passive Optical Splitter and PON (Passive Optical Network)

1. What is passive optical splitter?

Passive optical splitter, also known as fiber splitter or optical network splitter, is the core optical device that distributes a beam of light to multiple optical fibers. It is usually used in passive optical networks. The transmitted optical signals in the PON are distributed to multiple end users according to a certain proportion, so that multiple end users can share one PON interface.

1x4 SC LGX PLC splitter

 2. What is PON?

PON is a passive optical network, which means that does not contain any electronic devices and electronic power supplies, and ODN is all composed of passive devices such as optical splitters. A passive optical network consists of an optical line terminal (OLT) installed in a central control station, and a number of supporting optical network units (ONUs) installed in the user’s premises.

3. Active devices and passive splitters

Optical devices used in optical fiber communication can be divided into two categories: active optical devices and passive optical devices. The difference between the two lies in whether the photoelectric energy conversion occurs inside the device in the process of realizing its own function. If photoelectric energy conversion occurs, it is called an active optical device; if photoelectric energy conversion does not occur, even if the intervention of some electrical signals is required, it is called a passive optical device.

Optical splitter is one of the important passive components in optical fiber links, which mainly plays the role of light splitting.

4. How passive optical splitter work

When an optical signal is transmitted in a single-mode fiber, the light energy cannot be fully concentrated in the core to propagate, and a small amount of light energy is propagated near the fiber cladding. In general, when the cores of two optical fibers are close enough, the optical signal transmitted in one optical fiber can enter the other optical fiber, that is, the optical signal can be redistributed in the two optical fibers, which is exactly the origin of the passive optical splitter.

For example, a 1×4  passive optical splitter can distribute the optical signal in 1 optical fiber to 4 optical fibers in equal proportion. In simple terms, 1000Mbps bandwidth is evenly distributed to 4 households, and each household can use a network with 250Mbps bandwidth.

1x4 splitter

5. Passive optical splitter types

  • According to the working wavelength of the passive optical splitter, the optical splitter can be divided into single-window optical splitter and dual-window optical splitter.
  • According to the different manufacturing processes of optical splitters, passive optical splitters can be divided into FBT (Fused Biconical Taper) splitters and PLC (Planar Lightwave Circuit ) splitters.
  • Compared with the traditional FBT optical splitter, the PLC optical splitter is a passive optical device with superior performance. Nowadays, people prefer to use PLC splitters rather than FBT splitters. According to the common packaging method and application scope, PLC optical splitter can be divided into bare fiber optical splitter, blockless fiber splitter, fanout splitter, ABS splitter, LGX splitter, rack-mount splitter, mini plug-in type splitter and tray splitter.Click to learn more about passive optical splitter types.

Fiber-Optic-Splitters-Types

 

6. The benefits of passive optical splitters

A passive optical splitter is a device that splits an optical fiber and its signal. It is a completely passive network component, which saves optical cable resources and equipment room investment, and has the advantages of high security, low network construction cost, low maintenance cost, and high reliability.

7. Application of optical splitter in PON (passive optical network)

Fiber optic cabling provides high-speed connectivity. With PON, fiber can be used efficiently without sacrificing communication quality. Fiber splitters make the network flexible and scalable so the network can grow over time without taking up ports or running more fiber patch cords. Redundancy is easily considered with passive optical network splitter, increasing fault tolerance through aggregation switches or path redundancy.

Optical splitter has multiple input ends and output ends, so there are 1×2, 1×4 and other 1×N forms of passive optical splitters. Because of this feature, optical splitters are often used in passive optical networks to provide optical media transmission channels to the network-side OLT and the user-side ONU. In the PON structure, in order to achieve the purpose of efficient construction, the layout of the optical splitter needs to comprehensively consider factors such as the structure of the cell, the density of users, and the distribution of corridors. When the distribution of buildings is scattered and irregular, such as the distribution of villas, the distance is far, and the density of users is low, the centralized light splitting method can make full use of resources and cover the surrounding area.

With the continuous development of PON technology, passive optical network systems will become more and more common. As one of the important components of passive optical network systems, optical splitters are indispensable.

PON

8. At the end

Bonelinks is an optical fiber splitter manufacturer, focusing on providing customers with one-stop services for the design, development and manufacture of passive optical components. We mainly produce and sell various passive optical splitters, including 1×2, 1×4, 1×8, 1×16, 1×32, 1×64 splitters, etc, and passive optical fiber splitter pre-terminated with FC, SC, LC, ST or other fiber connectors. We can also customize it according to your needs. If you have any need, please contact us.

Echo Huang

Echo Huang is an expert wordsmith and marketing professional at Bonelinks with more than 8 years of experience in high technology businesses – fiber optics, IoT, and telecommunication. She is very glad to share industry knowledge and communicate with others.

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