Passive Optical Networks for 5G Transport: Technology and Standards

As the ink is drying on 5G New Radio standards, the industry is now setting its sight on specifying the transport network layer to support 5G deployments. Among the contending technologies, passive optical networks (PONs) stand out as an attractive choice because of the point-to-multipoint topology for efficient use of fiber resources and the wide deployments around the world. In this paper, we review key 5G wireless transport standards, discuss optical access technologies and standards development activities, and finally, highlight several state-of-the-art PON technologies.