The standard was developed by ITU and details an architecture capable of total network throughput of 40 Gbit/s, corresponding to up to 10 Gbit/s symmetric upstream/downstream speeds available at each subscriber.
PONs are managed by passive optics such as unpowered splitters and filters, offering high reliability and low cost compared to active networks.
The PON data stream is generally converted to a more traditional service such as Ethernet and Wi-Fi at the subscriber's location.
NG-PON2 was designed to include backwards-compatibility, or coexistence, with previous architectures to ease deployment into existing optical distribution networks.
The standard provides spectral flexibility to occupy reserved wavelengths in deployments devoid of legacy architectures.