APON

APON is an acronym that primarily refers to ATM Passive Optical Network, a family of telecommunications standards designed to deliver broadband services over fiber to the home or business by using ATM cells.

In APON, a central office or street cabinet connects to multiple subscriber sites through a passive optical splitter. Downstream transmissions are broadcast to all connected endpoints, while gateways coordinate upstream transmissions from users using time-division multiple access to prevent collisions.

The APON approach was part of the early fiber to the premises and was gradually superseded by newer generations of PON, such as GPON and EPON, which group traffic differently and often use Ethernet rather than ATM.

Beyond telecommunications, APON may be used as an acronym in other fields to denote organizations, projects, or products. Because acronyms vary by context, the intended meaning should be derived from the surrounding information.