Packet coalescing strategies for energy efficient high-speed communications over plastic optical fibers

Many recent standards for wireline communications have included a low-power operation mode for energy efficiency purposes. The recently approved VDE standard 0885-763-1 for high-speed communication over plastic optical fibers has not been an exception. The low-power mode is used when there is no datato betransmitted over the line, thus making consumption more proportional to network load. Furthermore, packet coalescing has been proposed in the literature to minimize the transitions between the low-power and active modes, thus reducing the energy penalties associated with such transitions. This article proposes an adapted version of packet coalescing for the periodic structure of the VDE 0885-763-1 physical layer. Such an algorithm attempts to fulfill active periods of transmission with data, showing an improved energy efficiency over conventional packet coalescing strategies. This conclusion is evaluated via simulation with both synthetic Poissonian traffic and real traces.