As bandwidth demands continue to increase and with copper cabling having distance shortcomings, passive optical networks looks like an alternative that can solve a number of problems. The primary driver of change from copper to optical is that the demands on the network have evolved. Every company now considers its network to be business critical where just a few years ago, it was considered best effort in nature. Downtime or a congested network meant inconvenienced users, but today they mean the business is likely losing big money.
