Ultra-Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (UDWDM) is a candidate for future Passive Optical Networks (PONs) to sustain the increase of access traffic, providing enhanced capacity with point-to-point logical connections while introducing the Wavelength-To-The-User (WTTU) concept. This is enabled by low cost coherent transceivers with high sensitivity, also furnishing increased splitting ratio and long reach extension. On the other hand, bandwidth demands are highly dynamic, driven by high definition video, cloud-computing traffic, next generation mobile networks and emerging Internet of Things (IoT). To support this dynamic pattern, reconfigurable capabilities are to be delivered to access and metro networks. In this paper we propose a flexible design of an UDWDM-PON, which adapts the available bandwidth to different classes of services and users, envisioning elastic flexible WDM grids for spectral efficiency and optimized metro network convergence.

Peer Reviewed