A bitter battle is going on between telecom operators and equipment makers over the contentious issue of importing passive optical network (PON) equipment.
- PON is installed in premises as well as in the exchange and is crucial for enabling high speed
- fixed broadband in homes.
- Operators want to import PON equipment to meet the broadband targets, makers say have enough capacity.
- After border tensions broke out between China and India, the government, under its ‘trusted sources’ policy for telecom equipment announced in 2020 and its mandatory testing and certification rules, has put clearances for PON equipment on hold.
- Without these clearances, imports are impossible.
What is a passive optical network (PON) ?
- A passive optical network (PON) is a fiber-optic network utilizing a point-to-multipoint topology and optical splitters to deliver data from a single transmission point to multiple user endpoints.
- Passive refers to the unpowered condition of the fiber and splitting/combining components.
- In contrast to an active optical network, electrical power is only required at the send and receive points, making a PON inherently efficient from an operation cost standpoint.
- This is in contrast to active optical networks, which require electrically powered switching hardware to pass cells or frames across the fiber cabling.
- Passive optical networks are used to simultaneously transmit signals in both the upstream and downstream directions to and from the user endpoints.
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