Energy challenges in optical access and aggregation networks

Abstract

Scalability is a critical issue for access and aggregation networks as they must support the growth in both the size of data capacity demands and the multiplicity of access points. The number of connected devices, the Internet of Things, is growing to the tens of billions. Prevailing communication paradigms are reaching physical limitations that make continued growth problematic. Challenges are emerging in electronic and optical systems and energy increasingly plays a central role. With the spectral efficiency of optical systems approaching the Shannon limit, increasing parallelism is required to support higher capacities. For electronic systems, as the density and speed increases, the total system energy, thermal density and energy per bit are moving into regimes that become impractical to support-for example requiring single-chip processor powers above the 100 W limit common today. We examine communication network scaling and energy use from the Internet core down to the computer processor core and consider implications for optical networks. Optical switching in data centres is identified as a potential model from which scalable access and aggregation networks for the future Internet, with the application of integrated photonic devices and intelligent hybrid networking, will emerge.

Overcoming degradation in spatial multiplexing systems with stochastic nonlinear impairments

“…A trend that would potentially increase the cost- and energy-per-bit by 10 times except for efficiency gains as ancillary functions overhead 3 is reduced via sub-system integration. However, with the number of required spatial paths projected to double every 2-years and the current communications infrastructure accounting for 1–2% of global energy 4 the current paradigm is exhausted. Thus, research effort must be directed towards the development of transformative means for achieving spatial parallelism that can ensure sublinear scaling of the total system cost and energy consumption.…”

Ultra-broadband two-pump optical parametric amplifier in tellurite waveguides with engineered dispersion

“…Considering a conservative estimation of bandwidth increase of 26% per year (~1 dB/year = 10 log 1.26), optical networks information traffic will grow more than 100 times throughout the two next decades. Furthermore, energy consumption and device footprint are also important issues that need to be addressed in the design of broadband-enabling equipment [9].…”

Communication networks beyond the capacity crunch

“…Exponential demand growth will inevitably lead to rising energy consumption, with some of the costs borne by end users (who already provide power for the equipment on their premises). While decommissioning old, inefficient, equipment will partially mitigate this rise [ 26 ], the current level of around 1–2% of global energy consumption suggests that communications efficiency should form part of the decision-making processes for major endeavours [ 16 ].…”

“…The increasing diversity and intricacy of communication services results in a highly complex network that is difficult to reconfigure on short time scales in order to meet changing demand patterns. Current research is focusing on open source network management tools to facilitate greater flexibility in network resource sharing, and in radical new network designs combining previously separate functions [16][17][18]]. -Software.…”