Demonstration of IEEE PON Abstraction for SDN Enabled Broadband Access (SEBA)

Abstract

The passive optical network (PON) is widely deployed in access networks, and various specifications have become standards designed to meet demands of each market. To accelerate new PON-based service creation, software-defined network enabled broadband access (SEBA) is being studied; it uses a common API to abstract various optical line terminal (OLT)/optical network units (ONUs) and manages the devices via a controller. However, the current abstraction unit in SEBA supports only ITU-T PON. In order to support IEEE PON, multiple package types and switching management functions must be considered. This paper proposes a technology profile including package types for IEEE specification and an adapter that abstracts IEEE PON and switches functions according to the specified package type. The logical link configuration settings for ITU-T PON and IEEE PON are implemented in common, and the adapter abstracts IEEE PON OLT/ONU by switching between extended operation, administration, maintenance (eOAM) functions for package B and other eOAMs. We demonstrate the proposed software on a system implemented using commercially available OLT/ONU and OSS in SEBA. The results show that OLT/ONUs can be managed via a common API, differences in package types can be abstracted by technology profiles and our adapter, and that a common SEBA platform can manage, in a unified manner, both ITU-T PON and IEEE PON.