Passive Optical Network

Okay kiddo, imagine a bunch of houses on one street. Each house needs to have internet to use their devices like phones, computers, and tablets. But if every house had its own internet connection, it would be expensive and confusing.

So instead, the houses share one big internet connection coming from a company called the internet service provider (ISP). This big connection is like the road in front of the houses and the ISP is like the company that built it.

But how does the internet get from the ISP to each house? This is where a passive optical network (PON) comes in.

Inside each house, there is a small box called an optical network terminal (ONT). This box has a special type of wire called fiber optic cable that can carry lots of information really fast.

The fiber optic cable goes from the ONT to a box outside called a splitter. The splitter takes the one fiber optic cable and splits it into many smaller ones. Each of these smaller cables goes to a different house on the street.

So now each house has its own little piece of the big internet connection thanks to the fiber optic cable and splitter. And that's how a passive optical network works!