Technical Bulletin

GPON Xpert™ Competitive Advantages

This document presents TraceSpan's GPON Xpert™ main competitive advantages compared to other GPON testing solutions in the market.

Feature TraceSpan GPON Xpert Capabilities Implications on the Customer

True Non- The GPON Xpert supports automatic timing Allows non-intrusive testing of the PON with no interruption to
Intrusive PON calibration, which allows the analyzer to capture data the traffic, even when all the ONUs have already been activated.
Testing on a PON without requiring connection or activation of
an ONU to start the capture.
The parallel connection option further enhances this
capability, as it allows connection of the analyzer to
the PON without having to disconnect the fiber, thus
introducing no interference to the traffic on the PON.
Continuous Real- Supports the Continuous Real-Time analysis, in which The continuous real-time mode is an especially useful
Time Analysis the analyzer captures and analyzes data in real-time capability, as it provides the ability to analyze intermittent
with a cyclic buffer, which enables it to capture for an problems and/or ones which occur long after the OLT and ONUs
unlimited period of time until stopped manually or by have established their connection.
a trigger.
In addition, the analyzer supports real-time analysis or
off-line analysis with a fixed buffer, in which all the
captured raw data is saved and analyzed.

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 Technical Bulletin

Feature TraceSpan GPON Xpert Capabilities Implications on the Customer

Analysis Protocol A true multi-layer analyzer, which analyzes GPON MAC
Layers and OMCI data, as well as data that is carried above the
GPON MAC layer, in the same application. Supported
protocols include Ethernet, PPPoE, PPP, ARP, IPv4, IPv6,
IGMP, UDP, DHCP, TCP, HTTP and RTP, and additional
protocols are added from time to time.
The fact that these protocols are analyzed by the same
application enable the analyzer to present the full network
tree including the protocols under each GEM port;
present data and events for the upper layers and provide the
ability to drill down through the layers and see the linkage
between events at different layers.
In addition, it allows the user to export the data to a PCAP
file or to stream it to an Ethernet port in real-time, to enable
analysis of additional protocols, which it cannot analyze
directly, by external applications, such as Wireshark.
Capture of upper Analysis and extraction of the upper layer data is
layer data from possible simultaneously for the whole GPON
the whole PON network (all GEM ports and multicast ports).
Analysis of the upper layer protocols in the same application as
the GPON MAC and GEM layer provides several significant
benefits to the user compared to analysis with external tools:
1. It allows direct correlation of the services with the customer's
ONUs and GEM ports.
2. It allows searching for a customer by its IP address, MAC
address, or VLAN ID.
3. It allows the correlation between the different protocol
layers, as an example comparison of the VLAN routing
information from the OMCI messages with the actual traffic
on the Ethernet layer.
TraceSpan's analyzer can simultaneously analyze or extract the
upper layer protocols for the whole PON, whereas some other
analyzers can only do it for a limited number of ports. Among
others, this provides full visibility to the PON and allows
comparison of the behavior of multiple ONUs operating on the
PON.

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 Technical Bulletin

Feature TraceSpan GPON Xpert Capabilities Implications on the Customer

Native TR-069 Supports native analysis of the TR-069 protocol,
analysis which is used for configuration of services over GPON
networks.
Native IPTV The IPTV analysis option identifies the and presents
Analysis the IPTV channels according to the UDP port number,
the Multicast IPTV Address and the channel name for
the known IPTV channels. For every channel it
displays the displays a list of IPTV channels that were
identified, along with their data rates and QoE metrics.
In addition it displays graphs showing the data rates
and QoE metrics of the IPTV channels over time along
with the IGMP Join and Leave messages and GPON
physical layer errors.
TR-069 is becoming very common for configuration of services
over GPON ONUs and GPON-fed residential gateways. Testing
of this protocol in the same tool provides a full end-to-end
picture of the GPON network, including the relation among the
different protocols.
Standard packet analysis tools, such as Wireshark, provide very
limited analysis for TR-069, and this makes its analysis within
the GPON analyzer even more important.
IPTV is one of the most important services which service
providers deliver over GPON.
Subscribers expect high-quality TV service and are not tolerant
to IPTV service issues, and thus the ability to validate the quality
and troubleshoot issues in the service add significant value to the
GPON analyzer.

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 Technical Bulletin

Feature TraceSpan GPON Xpert Capabilities Implications on the Customer

Maximal Capture Unlimited capture time.
Time
In standard mode, where all the data is saved, the
capture time is limited to a 16 GB buffer, which is
significantly larger than required for most practical
applications.
The analyzer also offers a continuous real-time mode,
in which the data is saved into a cyclic buffer, and the
capture time is unlimited.
OMCI Standard GPON Xpert supports the full variety of OMCI
Versions and versions in the market and their amendments, all the
Backwards way from G.984.4 to the latest version of G.988.
Compatibility
As a default it analyzes each ONU according to the
version that it supports, but the user also has the option
to define a newer (or older) version and force the
analysis to be done according to this version.
One of the applications for a GPON analyzer is tracking of
problems which happen only occasionally (every several hours
or days) and a long time after the OLT and the ONUs have
established their connection.
This is an advantage in TraceSpan's analyzer, which provides
long capture time, compared to the limited capturing time in
some of the other analyzers.
The OMCI standards are continuously being developed and new
OLT and ONU versions support the newer standard. On the on
the other hand, there are many legacy OLTs and ONUs in the
market, which support older versions.
In some aspects the newer OMCI versions are not backwards
compatible with the older ones.
Support of the latest OMCI versions as well as the older ones are
thus essential for correct analysis of GPON equipment and
networks.

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 Technical Bulletin

Feature TraceSpan GPON Xpert Capabilities Implications on the Customer

OMCI Extended GPON Xpert supports the extended OMCI messages
Message Support with variable length of up to 1980 bytes.
It can automatically identify when these messages are
being sent and analyze them accordingly.
OMCI Custom Displays and analyzes OMCI messages and provides a
Managed Entities graphical representation of the OMCI Managed
Entities and their explicit and implicit connections.
Also enables the definition of custom Managed
Entities, so that vendor-specific Managed Entities
can be analyzed and displayed.
Advanced GPON Xpert has an extensive triggering mechanism,
Triggering which allows the definition of various conditions as
Mechanism triggers.
For each such trigger the user can define one of several after a long time from start of the analysis.
actions, which include display of the trigger, stopping
of the analysis immediately, or stopping it after a pre-
defined number of seconds.
The largest OLT and ONU vendors in the market use the
extended OMCI messages to speed up processes such as
software image download and MIB upload.
Thus, the ability to analyze these messages correctly is essential
for analyzing and troubleshooting OMCI issues in GPON
networks.
Many vendors use custom Managed Entities in their OMCI
implementation. The ability to analyze them correctly is a
significant advantage in TraceSpan's analyzer.
The rich and flexible triggering mechanism is an important
advantage when looking for specific problems or network
conditions, especially ones which only happen occasionally and

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 Technical Bulletin

Feature TraceSpan GPON Xpert Capabilities Implications on the Customer

Events and Event Any deviation from the standard or interoperability The ability to fully customize the severity levels and event lists
Suppressions issue is defined as an event and displayed when it is a significant advantage in TraceSpan's analyzer.
occurs. The analyzer supports several different severity
levels, and every event is assigned a pre-defined
severity level.
The analyzer also allows the user to change the pre-
defined severity levels for each type of event, as well
as to define some events as not being reported. The
updated severity levels may be saved in a file, from
which they may be uploaded for future use.
Multi-layer Presents VLAN routing information as per TR-156 TraceSpan's multi-layer analysis capability allows the analyzer
VLAN Routing based on both OMCI information and true Ethernet to compare the configured VLAN routing to the actual one in a
Analysis layer analysis. This allows the analyzer to compare single view, and this significantly eases the validation of the
the expected VLAN tags and priorities to those correct setup and troubleshooting of problems in case they exist.
specified in the OMCI and indicate any mismatch
which is found.

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 Technical Bulletin

Feature TraceSpan GPON Xpert Capabilities Implications on the Customer

Customer and GPON Xpert's Customer Identification tool allows the When capturing a network with multiple ONUs, it is always a
Service Port user to search and identify a customer or a service port challenge to correlate the ONUs shown in the analyzer with
Identification on the Recording Tree according to its IP address physical ONUs. GPON Xpert's Customer Identification tool
and/or MAC address. handles this challenge by automatically searching the ONU.
The tool also supports searching by the ONU's S/N GPON Xpert's unique embedded upper layer analysis module
whenever it is captured. allows the search to also be done by the customer's IP address
and/or MAC address, which provide a powerful identification
tool beyond the ONU's S/N.

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 Technical Bulletin

Feature TraceSpan GPON Xpert Capabilities Implications on the Customer

Reference ONU GPON Xpert features a unique capability that allows
Analysis the user to automatically compare the full OMCI MIB
Capability of the analyzed ONU with a reference ONU and
highlight the differences between the two.
Troubleshooting interoperability issues is often a complex and
tedious task.
The Reference ONU Analysis capability eases and speeds up this
task by automatically pinpointing the differences between the
ONU under test and a reference ONU that works properly with
the OLT.

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 Technical Bulletin

Feature TraceSpan GPON Xpert Capabilities Implications on the Customer

Performance GPON Xpert includes an advanced Performance TraceSpan's Performance Monitoring mechanism is significantly
Monitoring Monitoring feature, which allows the user to define more flexible and feature-rich that in other analyzers.
counters for various parameters on the OLT and on
any of the ONUs, T-CONTs and GEM Ports.
The counter values are displayed during the analysis in
the forms of graphs or textual reports.

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 Technical Bulletin

Feature TraceSpan GPON Xpert Capabilities Implications on the Customer

Validation GPON Xpert has a Validation testing capability, which
Testing provides a fast and easy way to run a go/no-go test of
the GPON network and its equipment in order to
determine whether or not they work properly
according to predefined criteria. When running a
Validation test the user receives a simple pass/fail
indication based on the test’s pre-defined scenario.
The analyzer includes factory-defined test scenarios
based on the relevant ITU recommendations, and
includes a variety of processes such as ONU bring-up,
software image download, encryption, setup of
different types of services and more.
The user also has an option to edit the pre-defined test
scenarios, as well as to define customized test
scenarios.
Validation testing is a significant advantage, since it
significantly speeds up the work and saves staff training
costs and efforts.
Validation testing may be used, as an example, to verify the
system's functionality and performance when a new software
version or a new hardware version is introduced. The tests may
be run by staff with minimal training, which doesn't need to be
familiar with the GPON standards and the details of GPON
technology.

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 Technical Bulletin

Feature TraceSpan GPON Xpert Capabilities Implications on the Customer

Reporting and GPON Xpert has a built-in wizard for generating TraceSpan's ability to generate a report in a standard format is a
Exporting customized HTML reports with selected information significant advantage, since it allows easy sharing of information
Formats from the analysis. Information in the report may with parties who do not have the analyzer. As an example, it can
include triggers, Validation test results, data, signaling be used by a telecom operator to report a problem to its OLT and
and events for every one of the selected network ONU manufacturers, and these manufacturers can further use it
elements and protocols, OMCI diagrams and VLAN to forward the information to their chipset manufacturers.
Routing diagrams.
These reports can be read using any Internet browser
and does not require any special software.
Selected information from the analysis, can also be
exported to other formats, including XML, CSV and
PDF.

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 Technical Bulletin

Feature TraceSpan GPON Xpert Capabilities Implications on the Customer

Integrative GPON Xpert's OLT Emulator is combined with a GPON The GPON Xpert provides an integrative solution for
automated analyzer and a traffic generator in the same system: automatically running GPON ONU conformance testing and
solution for ONU • It allows generation of commands, as well as determining the results for each test case.
conformance, analysis of ONU response The built-in analysis capability allows troubleshooting test
including OLT
• It has a built-in Ethernet traffic generator for failures and pin-pointing the source of the failure.
emulator, GPON
downstream and upstream traffic generation.
analyzer and
traffic generator • Its integrated Upper Layer module analyzes
Ethernet traffic, which is part of the pass/fail
criteria for many of the tests, as well as IP and
IGMP, which must also be validated in some tests
• Its built-in Validation Test mechanism, provides
Go/No Go results with details of the steps that
passed and failed
• The built-in Automated Test Manager allows
automatic execution of a sequence of tests, and in
every test it configures the ONU, generates the
required Ethernet traffic streams, reports the
pass/fail status of each step in the test and generates
a detailed HTML report with the test results.

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 Technical Bulletin

Feature TraceSpan GPON Xpert Capabilities Implications on the Customer

OLT Emulator The OLT Emulator can play back OMCI messages that This capability allows testing of the ONU's interoperability with
OMCI Playback were captured from an OLT using the GPON Xpert an OLT or with several different types of OLTs even if these
Function analyzer and send them to the ONU under test. OLTs are not available when the test is being done.
This allows troubleshooting of OMCI issues when It is especially valuable for validating a fix in the ONU for a
testing an ONU stand-alone and verification of the problem that was identified when testing it against an OLT.
ONU's OMCI interoperability with the OLT.
The OMCI messages may also be edited, to allow easy
isolation of a fault in case it occurs.
Compatibility TraceSpan's GPON Tracer is a unique battery-powered The option to record the data with GPON Tracer and analyze it
with the GPON handheld testing device for on-site troubleshooting. with GPON Xpert provides a full multi-tier support solution:
Tracer Handheld While GPON Tracer can troubleshoot many types of Basic troubleshooting in the field with GPON Tracer, with the
Testing Unit problems on its own, some cases of complex problems option to escalate complex issues to higher support tiers by
require deep analysis of the PLOAM and OMCI recording the data and analyzing it with GPON Xpert.
messages and the upper layer messages. For this
purpose the GPON Tracer has a recording capability,
which allows recording of the data on the PON. The
recorded file is compatible with GPON Xpert, which
can analyze it for detailed troubleshooting.

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Feature TraceSpan GPON Xpert Capabilities
Customer The analyzer has references from several tens of tier-1
References telecom operators and manufacturers in the Americas,
Europe and the Asia Pacific region.
The leading OLT vendors in the market, which
together hold over 80% of the worldwide GPON
market, all have at least one GPON Xpert, and some of
them have multiple units in different locations.
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Technical Bulletin
Implications on the Customer
The fact that TraceSpan's analyzer has a significantly larger number of
references than any other GPON analyzer is an advantage in three
main aspects:
1. Technical field experience: The fact that the analyzer has been
tested in many different conditions and with a variety of different
systems from different vendors can provide the confidence that the
system is debugged and works reliably. Every different GPON system,
chipset and firmware version has its own issues, and different system
configurations introduce an additional factor for potential problems.
TraceSpan's GPON Xpert has proven experience with the largest
variety of vendors and product versions.
2. References: The fact that many Tier-1 customers have selected the
TraceSpan system also means something. The majority of these
customers have selected and purchased the analyzer when other GPON
testing products were already available. Many of them have tested
other products in their labs and compared them before making their
decision which one to select. In addition, a few of the customers who
purchased a competitor's product have later changed their mind and
decided to purchase GPON Xpert to replace it.
3. Common language in the market: The fact that the majority of
vendors and operators in the market use the same analyzer make it
much easier to share test results, creates a common language and make
it the 'standard de-facto' test tool for GPON.