Optical fiber networks operate on different passive optical network (PON) standards.

A PON is a
network system specific to fiber technology that delivers broadband network access to your home or
business. One of many PON standards is GPON.

GPON stands for Gigabit Ethernet passive optical network (PON). GPON uses Asynchronous Transfer
Mode (ATM) for voice, Ethernet for data, and proprietary encapsulation for voice. This means that it uses
fixed-sized cells instead of variably sized packets of data. It offers faster Gbps than EPON (Ethernet
passive optical network) on downstream and upstream bandwidths.

A GPON system consists of an optical line terminal (OLT) that connects several optical network
terminals (ONTs/ONUs) together using a passive optical distribution network (ODN).

GPON fundamentals and how it works:

GPON is a point-to-mulipoint access network. The main characteristic of GPON is that it uses passive
splitters in the fiber optic distribution network (ODN). This allows one single feeding fiber from the
Internet service provider (ISP) to serve multiple homes or businesses. Fiber optic means that fiber
technology uses cables to transmit light.

For this example, we will make the optical line terminal (OLT) at your Internet service provider (ISP)
headquarters the GPON system start point.

The Internet, voice/telephone, and TV data services that your ISP provides are sent from this point.
This data travels along the single fiber optical distribution network (ODN) until it reaches the passive
optical splitter.
Once the data reaches the splitter, the splitter breaks the light signal into multiple signals to distribute out
to individual ONT/ONU equipment on your home premise or at your business to provide you with access
to these services. The ONT/ONUs are the end point(s).
The steps look like this:

OLT sends one-point signal > ODN > splitter breaks into multiple signals > multiple ONT/ONUs receive
signals.
This is a simplified version, but it gives you a high-level idea of what is happening on a GPON system.
GPON provides for a large range of benefits that enable rapid, flexible, mass‐market fiber deployments at
the lowest possible cost of ownership and rollout.
‘Passive’ denotes that the optical fiber network does not rely on any electrically-
powered equipment in its path.

GPON also has a 1:64 ratio on a single fiber. What this means is that one fiber cable in
a GPON can deliver video, data and voice to up to 64 end users. This makes it the
optical network standard of choice for achieving last-mile connectivity in an efficient
and cost-effective manner, as a GPON reduces the number of fiber runs in a fiber
optic network.

GPON consists of three main elements: an OLT (Optical Line Terminals), ONU
device (Optical Network Unit), and passive splitter. Here, the passive optical splitter is
what enables the use of just one optical fiber cable that connects the internet service
provider to multiple end users, as it typically splits the signal into up to 64 others.

So, how does the entire process flow? Here is a simple explanation:

First, the Optical Line Terminal sends data in the form of optical signals through a
process called optical Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM). The OLT is
typically your ISP and can be considered as the starting point of a GPON.
The signal propagates along a single length of fiber over an optical distribution
network (ODN), reaching the passive splitter at the end. A GPON fiber network can
reach distances up to 20 km.
The passive GPON splitter receives the optical signal and splits it into multiple
signals, up to 64. This is what enables point-to-multipoint access, thus enabling up to
64 fiber connections.
Finally, in the last-mile, the split optical signals reach individual GPON ONT/ONU
devices that are installed at the premise of a residence or a business. This is the
terminating point of GPON and enables the conversion of optical data signal into an
electrical signal. In a reverse manner, data is also sent upstream from the GPON
ONT/GPON ONU to the OLT.

Fast Ethernet (FE) and Gigabit Ethernet (GE) are the two types of Ethernet that are used most frequently.

FE runs at the maximum speed of 100 Mbps while GE offers speeds

up to 1 Gbps, which is 10 times faster. While GE offers a significantly
faster speed than FE, it's important to note that data transfer using GE
usually tops off around 900 Mbps and that 1000 Mbps is an absolute
maximum. FE is simpler to configure
1 phone port (POTS)