Südwestdeutscher Verlag für Hochschulschriften Design and Cost Performance of WDM PONs for Multi- Wavelength Users

Due to the incomparable popularity of the Internet, the already enormous and still rocketing bandwidth demand may only be satisfied by optical networks, particularly by using the Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) technology. In many research labs, WDM Passive Optical Networks (PON) access networks are considered as the next generation optical access. The subject of this work will be engineering new cutting edge architectures offering each user/service at least one wavelength. New techniques and models are introduced to design single and multistage WDM PONs. A design tool was implemented to analyze all technologically feasible architectures. During real deployments, the technology has worked but the economic factors have proven to be too costly. Thus, it is important to examine these economic aspects. The objective is to identify those architectures that minimize costs. Access to these newly identified network architectures will prompt market introduction as well as market penetration helping Fiber-to-the- Home (FTTH) to become reality.