will be appreciated that table 1 illustrates example bandwidth assignments such that the total bandwidth symmetric in both directions may be assigned in other fashions the splitter 125 discussed with regard to fig1 may be replaced with a second mux demux 300 as shown in fig3 mux demux 300 demultiplexes the downstream signals from olt 105 fig1 onto optical fibers pon a through pon d each of these pons may then be split through splitters such as 1 32 splitters 305 because of the demultiplexing there is one splitter 305 per pon type the corresponding onus such as an onu a 310 need not include a bandpass filter since mux demux 300 has demultiplexed the downstream signals regardless of whether a second mux demux is implemented the resulting passive optical network allows a user to multiplex a given optical fiber to many more onus than would otherwise be achievable in a conventional passive optical network system moreover this multiplexing is achieved in a point to multipoint each wavelength assignment supporting multiple onus fashion as compared to the point to point nature of conventional wdm pons moreover the wavelength selections discussed herein provide a maximum wavelength separation between the upstream and downstream channels while avoiding the water absorption region in addition these wavelength selections may avoid interference with video signals in a cable television local loop it will be obvious to those skilled in the art that various changes and modifications may be made without departing from this invention in its broader aspects for example the various wavelengths in the upstream and downstream directions may be separated by a wavelength separation longer or shorter than 20 nm moreover the divisions between wavelength assignments need not be evenly spaced the.