Fiber-Wireless (FiWi) Networks: A Comparative Techno-Economic Analysis of EPON and WiMAX

Hybrid fiber-wireless (FiWi) networks become rapidly mature and represent a promising candidate for reducing power consumption, costs, and bandwidth bottlenecks of next-generation broadband access networks. Two key FiWi technologies with similar design goals are Ethernet passive optical network (EPON) and WiMAX. In this paper, we develop a powerful and flexible techno-economic analysis to compare the two technologies, taking into account not only equipment and installation costs but also OAM related costs such as power consumption and repairing costs for a wide range of different network failure scenarios, terrain types, and wireless channel conditions. The presented results give insight into the cost-performance trade-offs of EPON and WiMAX networks.