Green is PON’s color

(courtesy of Dan Parsons of BroadLight – images enhanced by SurplusEQ)

In the past 15 years, the telecommunication industry has been intensely focused on supplying more bandwidth to satisfy the ever-increasing consumer demand for high-speed internet, IPTV, gaming, and whatever other service that can be delivered satisfactorily over the network. The fallout has been a drastic increase in the power consumed at the central office (CO), along with a similarly drastic increase in the costs of supplying that power, both in terms of dollars and ultimately the far-reaching effects on the environment.

How much impact does the telecommunication industry’s drive for higher access speeds have on the planet? Is there a technology that can slow the trend of higher power for higher speeds?

Erlang To Always On

As has been thoroughly discussed elsewhere, the public switched telephone network (PSTN) was not originally engineered for Internet traffic. The PSTN capacity was based on a voice traffic density probability model as defined by the Erlang. In essence, for cost optimization, the telephone network was Read the rest of this entry »