AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY: Karen Leos is the Chair of the Board for APOLAN, a non-profit organization composed of manufacturers, distributors, integrators, and consulting companies who are actively involved in the Optical LAN marketplace. With more than 20 years of industry experience, Karen has held responsibility for optical LAN products, solutions, and services portfolios throughout every phase of the lifecycle, including scoping customer requirements, implementation, maintenance support, optimization, and refresh across a variety of industries. REFERENCES 1. How much does a cruise ship cost to operate per day?, Royal Caribbean Blog, January 2024 2. How Virtual Reality is Changing the Way We Experience Cruises, Virtual Reality Travel, October 2024 3. Speed 2 – The Poseidon Adventure – Part One, September 2020, Pen Test Partners 4. Exploring next-gen energy efficiency technologies for cruise ships, DNV 5. Floating Networks: The Engineering Behind Cruise Ship Communications, The Art of Network Engineering, June 2025 6. Validating Passive Optical LANs for Large-Scale Cruise Ship Deployments, Hubbell Premise Wiring, May 2025
deliver PoE over short copper cables to devices, they are active pieces of equipment that require their own power source. To save space and simplify installation, ONTs can be efficiently powered and connected using hybrid copper-fiber cables. Newer Class 4 fault- managed power systems (FMP) can also be used to deliver more DC power over longer distances with smaller conductors, offering additional material, weight, and energy savings. For maximum network resilience, passive optical LANs are typically deployed in a fully redundant architecture. This involves using dual feed splitters, diverse optical fiber routes, and dual OLTs housed in geographically dispersed RDPs, typically located on the port and starboard sides of the ship. By connecting dual splitter feeds to separate OLTs, one OLT can take over control of the network if the other is rendered out of service. This setup is referred to as Dual-Parented Type B PON protection in ITU-TG.984.1 standards. Figure 3 illustrates an example of a resilient passive optical LAN design, where dual splitter feeds from 2:16 splitters connect to separate OLTs located in port and starboard RDPs. In this scenario, each splitter connects to 16 ONTs to support 32 passenger cabins. RDFs can
contain multiple splitters and/or larger splitters (e.g., 2:32) to support even more cabins. Finally, to optimize network operations, OLTs can be centrally managed via an intelligence and management platform. This enables IT managers to configure OLTs and ONTs through software-defined networking (SDN), allowing them to define security policies and configure VLANs. These platforms also provide complete visibility into network health. Choosing OLTs and management platforms that support open standardized protocols and application programming interfaces (API) ensures easy integration into mixed-vendor environments and with third-party SDN orchestrators. SUMMARY Navigating the complexity of technology deployments aboard modern cruise ships requires an innovative approach to connectivity. Passive optical LANs stand out as a superior alternative, offering a compelling blend of benefits: • Simplify deployment and reduce fuel consumption with smaller-diameter and lower-weight optical fiber cables.
• Free up revenue-generating square footage and reduce cost and power requirements with less IT space, equipment, and associated power and cooling. • Enhance security with optical fiber’s inherent EMI immunity and passive optical LAN’s fewer touchpoints and centralized management. • Deliver a future-proof infrastructure with limitless bandwidth capability, resistance to marine corrosion, and longer equipment lifespan.
• Ensure superior resiliency via redundant standards-based PON protection.
Ultimately, embracing an optical fiber-based infrastructure, such as passive optical LAN, allows cruise lines to meet the growing demands of guests and operations while achieving significant operational and capital savings, advancing their ambitious sustainability goals, and ensuring they remain at the forefront of the hospitality industry.
FIGURE 3 : : Geographically dispersed OLTs with fiber route diversity (dual-parented type B PON protection) provide maximum redundancy and resilience. Source: APOLAN
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