Understanding the overall objectives, historical milestones, and evolution of PON technologies.

Fundamental concepts, wavelength band plans, power and loss considerations, split ratios, optical classes, and characteristics.

Exploration of FTTx system architectures, infrastructure, and functional blocks including OLT (Optical Line Terminal), ONU (Optical Network Unit), and ODN (Optical Distribution Network).

Detailed study from services to the physical layer: Ethernet to XGEM, FS layer, PHY adaptation.

Key functions and concepts of the Transmission Convergence layer, including T-CONT, Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation (DBA), bandwidth types, and Quality of Service (QoS) considerations for realistic throughput and latency.

Comprehensive overview of synchronization, ONU discovery, ranging, provisioning, operation, and QoS implementation.

Management of ONUs using Embedded OAM, PLOAM, and OMCI.

Alarming and performance metrics, system management, PON supervision, and power-saving mechanisms.

Implementation of authentication and encryption protocols.

Strategies for PON protection and redundancy to ensure network resilience. 

Coexistence strategies for different PON versions, RF overlay techniques, and reach extender applications.

Comparison between ITU-T and IEEE EPON standards.

Utilization of PON as a mobile backhaul solution.