Overview

Congratulations, dear reader! You are one of the most determined, one of the most persistent, one of those who finished the entire book. And it was not an easy reading (I know I read it, too). But you weathered it all and have reached the end. Thank you for that!

I guess, now would be a good time to reveal that The EPON Book has not been written yet. Even though EPON took industry (and academia) by storm, advancing from a raw idea to an industrywide standard in 5 short years, its story is far from over.

EPON is the first public network architecture that traces its ancestry not to telephony or cable communications, but to private enterprise data networks. EPON is standardized by the IEEE 802.3 work group a group that reigns in the LAN world, but has not ventured much beyond it. Ethernet in the First Mile was its first such attempt a reconnaissance mission into yet unknown territory. It is not surprising that a great many things were done differently than they are traditionally done in the telecom world. But will the telecom world accept the EPON? Will network operators love it and mass-deploy it? Will EPON be successful. And, for that matter, what constitutes the success?

I am often asked if, in my opinion, EPON would be the ultimate access network architecture. And I always say, I hope not. I hope, that EPON will break the grip of twisted pair on the first mile; I hope it will...