Energy efficiency of optical transceivers in fiber access networks [invited]

The dramatic growth of Internet traffic is leading to a concern about the future power consumption of the Internet. Energy sustainability of communication networks is becoming a very important goal for the reduction of the global carbon footprint. As optical access networks gain more popularity, their share in the energy consumption of the data network will increase. Developing energy-efficient technologies for optical access networks is therefore crucial for the continuous scaling of the Internet. In this paper, we model the power consumption of different transceivers and demonstrate how various electronic and photonic technologies can help improve energy efficiency. We discuss the impact of different light sources and driver circuits on the transceiver power efficiency. We also show how energy efficiency is related to network topology.