Abstract Optical fibers are a key inventive discovery that contributed to the digital revolution, although cost becomes a major factor for long-distance communication. Whereas passive optical networks (PONs) offer reduced costs and cater to multiple users; hence, they are becoming more common in LANs, densely inhabited areas, and backbone networks. Numerous experiments on PON systems have been authored in the last couple of years, with results expressed in terms of BER, eye openings, quality of received bits factor, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and burst blocking, which demands a vast review of PONs based on these parameters. So, a comprehensive review of PONs is extensively researched to identify the methods’ limitations. Along with long-reach(LR)-PON systems, power conservation in PONs and burst contention are also addressed. To demonstrate the performance of PON architectures, the findings are provided in terms of delay, energy efficiency, and operations intensity.