Overview of optical local access networks development and design challenges

Local access network technologies tend to take advantage of the potentially huge capabilities of fiber communication to deliver faster and more various services to end users. There has been considerable research effort in implementing access networks optically. These optical access technologies were developed particularly under certain circumstances, each of which has its own application domain. This paper reviews critically the existing optical technologies in terms of advantages and limitations. The intention of implementing optical access network also reveals some critical challenges. Through a case study, the paper analyzes the feasibility of designing an optical access network that avoids the common challenges and limitations in the optical field, hence concludes that the key issue when designing an optical access control protocol is the good utilization of the available bandwidth with simplicity of implementation.