Building Energy Efficient LR-PON For Desert
Terrain of Saudi Arabia
Mohammad Siraj1, Amanullah Fatehmulla2, Saleh Alshebeili3, Kamalrulnizam Abu Bakar4
1,4
Faculty of Computer Science and Information Systems , University Technologi Malaysia
2
Department of Physics, College of Science P.O. Box 2455,King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
1,3
PSATRI/STC-Chair, College of Engineering, King Saud University, P.O. Box 800, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Abstract— With the increase of bandwidth demands, an
increasing concern prevails among researchers towards energy
consumption in next generation access networks. Attempts have
been made by researchers with an overview of techniques and
architectures for energy consumption minimization in core
networks. Growing concern equally exists essentially to reduce
Green House Gases (GHG) emissions from computers and
network equipments. In the present paper, we focus on
renewable energy utilization at access level as well with a view to
build energy efficient long range passive optical networks (LR-
PON) for desert terrain of Saudi Arabia. In this paper we have
presented LR-PON model between Riyadh and Al-Kharj with an
admission control algorithm for efficient performance of LR-
PON. Also, in this paper we have shown how to reduce network
complexities and provide a cost effective solution by greening the
network at the access level by using solar energy which is
renewable and clean.
Keywords- LR-PON, telecom network, access network, solar
energy, admission control
I. INTRODUCTION
Energy conservation has become one of the most sought
topics of the present era. Research directions are being
explored to address this situation. This motivation is driven
mainly because of two reasons. The primary reason is that
hydrocarbon energy, which is not renewable, ultimately will be
consumed in the distant future. The second reason is to reduce
the carbon footprint. Information and Communication
Technology (ICT), which is a rapidly growing technology, is
one of the major consumers of energy. In fact, as per the data
of 2009, ICT consumes about 8% of the total electricity
consumption of the world [1]. In this paper we focus on energy
efficiency of access network which is the last part of
telecommunication networks. The access network connects the
telecom Central Office to the business and residential
consumers. Our focus is on access networks, as the access
network consumes around 70 % of telecommunication network
energy consumption. This number will grow in the coming
years with the rapid increase in number of subscribers and the
broadband network demand [2]. This consumption in access
network is due to the presence of large number of active
elements [3]. Due to the continuous growth of bandwidth
requirement, the energy consumption of computers and
network devices have risen [4], [5], [6]. Consciousness on
energy consumption is rising nowadays in the Information and
Communication Technology. In the present era energy
978-1-4577-0069-9/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE
consumption have become an environmental issue and
therefore social and political issue. So to make our planet
Green, carbon footprint has to be reduced. We have to tackle
this issue by designing efficient energy schemes for future
telecommunication networks. Through these efficient energy
schemes in future access networks, the energy cost will come
not only down but also we will be moving towards making our
planet green.
There are various access technologies available in the market.
DSL (Digital Subscriber Line), FTTH (Fiber to the Home),
Wireless and Cellular Networks, WOBAN (Wireless Optical
Broadband Access Networks) are the present day technologies.
Currently, in access networks, there is a trend towards FTTH
because of requirement of high data rates. FTTH are being
preferred because they have low attenuation and provide higher
bandwidth. The higher data rate demand is coming from
applications such as video on demand, HDTV, online games
etc. After the deployment of Fiber in FTTH access networks
the network is simplified and the total cost of ownership (TOC)
comes down [7]. Thus consolidation of the networks cuts the
energy costs. It is widely seen that electricity is lost
considerably in access network equipments. This is due to
various reasons. Firstly poor network design is a cause of
electricity loss. Secondly idle elements [8] in the network
consume significant energy. It is estimated that networking
equipments are utilized not more than 15% [9]. So there is a
need that network is utilized properly to reduce the energy
consumption of these idle elements. The energy consumption
of the network components such as routers, switches, Optical
Cross-Connect, optoelectronic Switch etc. is quite high. For
e.g. Cisco CRS-1 Core Router whose capacity is 92 Tbps
consumes 1020 kW [10].Alcatel-Lucent 1675 Optoelectronic
Switch whose capacity is 1.2 Tbps consumes 2.5 kW [11].
Researchers are working on two directions to reduce the
consumption of energy in these idle elements. The two
approaches are: a) energy saving protocol design [12],b)
energy saving network design.
In this paper we have proposed an architecture for deploying
LR-PON in the desert terrain of Saudi Arabia between Riyadh
and Al Kharj and the distance between them 90 kilometers.
Also in this paper we have proposed solar energy to power our
network elements of access networks which is clean and
renewable. We have presented an admission control algorithm
for LR-PON for efficient performance.
The paper is organized as follows. The following section
discusses related work. Section III describes about the Network
Structure. In section IV and V we describe about our Network
Model and Energy Model. Section VI discusses Analytical
Model .Finally section VII concludes this work.
II. RELATED WORK
In recent years researchers have published works related to
energy consumption of telecom networks and how to improve
energy efficiency in light of growing broadband demand and
increase usage of internet. For example, the power
consumption distribution in networks has been estimated [13],
as well as the energy consumption of the internet [14]. An
overall energy forecast for Telecommunication network during
the operation phase when delivering broadband services
delivery has been done [15] Wireless networking community
have designed energy efficient protocols [16]. They have done
the comparison between different emerging technologies such
as passive optical network (PON), fiber to the node (FTTN),
Point to Point Optical network (PtP) and WiMAX. There have
been several proposal and recommendation for energy efficient
PON’s. There have been proposal for low power (sleep) for
Figure1. Schematic Diagram of a Telecom Network with different access network options
In this section we describe about these three domains and
discuss essential network elements.
Core Network:
The term core network is referred to the backbone of the
telecom network. They connect cities and spans continental
distances. The core network comprises of large routers to
perform all the necessary routing. Generally the core routers
are connected in mesh architecture. In the core network, optical
technologies are widely used to support the physical
infrastructure to achieve high speed, high capacity etc. High
Capacity Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) fiber
links are used to interconnect these routers and to connect to
other network operators. Network architectures based on IP
over SONET/SDH over WDM or IP over WDM have been
deployed. Typically WDM links in today’s networks comprises
of 10 Gb/s Packet over SONET (PoS), or 10 Gb Ethernet, or 40
Gb/s PoS.
PON equipments [17]. Handshaking protocol for coordinated
sleeping mechanism [18], shedding power in user network
interface (UNI) and access network interface (ANI) [19] etc.
Hybrid Wireless Optical Broadband Access Network
(WOBAN) [20] which is a combination of Passive Optical
Network (PON) and WiMAX has also been proposed towards
energy efficient design. Some researchers have focused energy
efficiency in access networks [3] [21].Once these suggestions
are implemented energy can be saved.
Despite all these efforts, there remains a significant
challenge to deploy energy efficient design in access networks.
III. NETWORK STRUCTURE
In recent years researchers have published works related to
energy consumption of telecom networks and how to improve
efficiency in telecom network. A Telecom Network can
logically be divided into three main domains-the core network,
the metropolitan network and access network as shown in fig.1
below
Metropolitan Network:
The metro network serves as an interface between core and the
access network. Typically they cover metropolitan region. The
essential components are Ethernet switches, broadband
network gateways, edge routers etc. The edge switch typically
connects an end user's LAN to an ISP's network or backbone.
Sometimes an edge switch is also called an access node or a
service node. Generally their capacity is from 2.5 to 480 Gbps.
An edge router is sometimes referred to as a boundary router.
They are designed to support high traffic volumes. Broadband
network gateways perform IP routing, secure admission
control, protection from malicious attacks (DDOS), secure
Internet tunneling and connect to other edge routers. The edge
switches and routers are designed to improve performance by
providing scalability, reliability and security for small and large
networks. OADMs (Optical Add Drop Multiplexer), SONET
ADM (Add Drop Multiplexer) form part of Metro Optical
Network.
IV. NETWORK MODEL
In this section we discuss our model of the access network:
Long reach Passive Optical Network (LR- PON): LR-PON is
a novel technology aimed at replacing the current copper
access network with a shared fibre network offering much
greater capacity and is proposed as a cost effective solution for
future broadband optical networks. LR-PON use Optical
amplifiers (OA). LR-PON single segment coverage area is 100
km. It can be extended beyond 100km by utilizing Wavelength
dense multiplexing (WDM) technology. In our model fig.2, we
consider 1024 way split 100 km LR PON with 10 Gbps
symmetric transmission rate for upstream and downstream
directions. The core exchange would be placed in Riyadh and
local exchange at Al Kharj. A single fiber would run from the
local exchange on the access network to a location close to the
customer premises. It is shared to 1024 users by a 1024 split.
This 1024 split is made up of a cascade of two N: 16 and one
N: 4 splits [23]. The distribution section is divided into three
parts each containing a length of fibre (3km, 3km and 4km)
making 10 km. Though increasing the data rate to 10 Gbps will
need an expensive high speed transmitter for each ONU but the
cost is compensated as the OLT is shared by 1024 users. The
reason why we have chosen LR-PON is because a) it has
passive elements b) of its reach many remote locations can be
combined, thereby reducing energy consumption in access
network.

.
Figure 2. Proposed Architecture for Long Reach Passive Optical Networks

V. ENERGY EFFICIENT LR-PON MODEL USING (Green) system using PV modules (36 modules each of 220 W)
can be designed. In this paper, an energy efficient LR-PON
SOLAR ENERGY: model at the access level for desert terrain habitants of Saudi
Stand-alone PV(Photovoltaic) systems have shown to be Arabia has been developed keeping in view of the expected
reliable and cost effective for various applications and have number of subscribers and their energy consumption towards
attracted the users. For a specific application with an estimated the network components (Table I)
requirement of energy consumption, a renewable energy
Table I
ENERGY CONSUMPTION PER
TOTAL ENERGY CONSUMPTION
CUSTOMER
TECHNO- Min.
Power Per
LOGY PTU(kW) NTU PRN(W) NRN PCPE(W) Technology Limit Maximum AT Energy
Customer
Per Bit

ADSL 1.73[11] 1024 0 N/A 5 15 Mb/s 2 Mb/s 7.8 W 3.8μJ

PtP 4.72[25] 1024 0 N/A 4[26] 1 Gb/s 125 Mb/s 12.2 W 0.1 μJ

PON 1.24[27] 1024 0 N/A 5[28] 2.4 Gb/s 16 Mb/s 7.6 W 0.5 μJ

FTTN 1.34[27] 1024 47[29] 16[30] 10[31] 50 Mb/s 2 Mb/s 13.2 W 6.6 μJ
The per customer power consumption of all four access The energy cost in US $ --------$6117.98 /year
technologies Pa can be expressed as
In view of the above calculations and the initial cost of our
PRN 2 PTU PV system including the initial electrical installation cost
Pa PCPE   power the said LR-PON, a plot showing the comparison of the
N RN NTU (1) energy cost incurred with PV and conventional systems and
years of operation has been drawn(Fig.3 ).
where PCPE, PRN, and PTU are the powers consumed by the
customer premises equipment (i.e., the modem), the remote
node and the terminal unit at the central office, respectively. 120000 Electrical Energy Cost
NRN and NTU are the number of customers or subscribers that Cost of Solar Energy
share a remote node and the number of customers that share a
terminal unit, respectively. The last term on the right hand side 100000
of equation (1) includes a factor of 2 to account for additional
overheads such as external power supplies and cooling
80000
requirements [24]. Table I lists the values of the parameters for

Cost in US $
each access technology. On the left-hand side of this table are
the parameters referred to in this section and on the right-hand 60000
side the parameters are normalized on a per customer basis.
The number of customers per Cisco 4503 Ethernet switch
NTU(PtP) is given by 40000

§ ª 116  LB  Gb / s º ª  64  LB  Gb / s º · payback period

min ¨ « » ¸¸
20000
¨ 1Gb / s  AT » «
NTU ( PtP ) '
© ¬ ¼ ¬ 2 AT ¼¹
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
(2)
Years of Operation
where the first term is due to the limit of port capacity, and the
second term is due to the limit of switching capacity. Figure 3. Cost comparison between the PV and Conventional
Total PTU= ADSLPTU + PtPPTU + PONPTU + FTTNPTU energy in operating LR-PON system

= (1.73 + 4.72 + 1.24 + 0.17) kW
= 7.76 kW .
Based on the above energy consumption, solar energy
(Renewable energy source) model has been designed to power
the LR-PON at access level.
Cost comparison between electrical & solar energy:
(Consumption at Access Network)
Total Power needed at Access level = 7.76 kW
Calculation of cost of solar energy needed to power LR-PON:
About 36 solar modules each of 220W are enough which cost
about US$ 45000 (cost of PV system+ complete solar panel
grid-tie systems with battery backups)
The energy needed daily ------ 7.76 kWh × 18 hours = 139.68
kWh/day
(Note: 5- 6 hours/day excluded in charging process)
  
From figure 3, it is clear that the Solar Energy and electrical
energy costs intersect at about 5½ years of operation which is
the payback period. Since the maintenance cost is low or
approximately nil, it appears that the solar energy becomes
almost free after 5½ years and it demonstrates the economic
effectiveness. Therefore, electrical energy will cost more than
solar energy, especially for large scale application the cost will
increase rapidly. In addition to that the solar energy is clean
and safe. Our experience of the design and development of PV
low power water pumping system with relatively low cost
suggests that this small scale technology can serve the purposes
like lifting water to 10 m head, small area irrigation especially
in remote rural areas and in deserts[32]. Also it supports our
experience that by the use of renewable energies in windy and
sunny areas a simple, cheap and reliable irrigation (pumping)
or cooling (refrigerating) systems can be applied, avoiding the
disadvantages of the already existed diesel-powered systems
[33]. However, photovoltaic powered Network systems have
reached a technical maturity and hence the design of power
consumption model at access networks using solar energy

  


    

 becomes a viable option and is characterized of a high
(Approximate value in KSA) reliability. Further, it offers clean energy free from carbon
footprint (GHG emissions) and provides the advantages of
So, the daily energy cost ------- 139.68 kWh/day × 12cents/ reduced operation and maintenance cost.
Kwh = 1676.16 cents/day
VI. ANALYTICAL MODEL
The energy cost per year -------1676.16 cents/day × 365
!

 Analytical Model of Admission Control:
The proposed model imposes minimum additional burden on pa
1 . If this condition is not met, then request Q +2 will be
the server and the network. i
checked and so on. If the request can’t be admitted by all the
Let the maximum number of requests that can be serviced at sections, then the request will be considered blocked and the
the server at Central Office (CO) be n. The central office (CO) server will discard the request. The flowchart for the admission
connects the core network and the access network, and control algorithm is shown below in fig.5
implements layer 2 and layer 3 functions, e.g., resource
allocation, service aggregation, management, and control. Let
Pb be the overall bandwidth and Pr is the request from the PON
segments.

Pb
If nd (3)
Pr

It means the requests can be handled by the server buffer

otherwise there is congestion. So we can say this is the
admission control test at the CO server that the server is
capable of serving maximum n requests. For efficient
performance we have assumed the servers and clients are
distributive. Let the buffer capacity at CO be C .Let us have k
service requests from different distribution segment with
      " where i=1 to k. The server capacity is
divided into many sections with each section port having Figure 5. Admission Control Flowchart
capacity Cj where j=1 to k as shown in figure below. Total
system capacity is
k VII. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
C ¦C j (4) This paper shows the feasibility of reducing carbon foot print
j 1 in access networks through the use of solar energy.The
calculations of the specific energy consumption costs show the
promising economic effectiveness and reliability of the
designed solar energy conversion system for LR-PON. A key
parameter that will effect growth of energy consumption of the
network is the rate at which the energy efficiency of the
network equipment in the infrastructure improves with
successive generations of new technology. The overall energy
efficiency of the network will depend on how rapidly network
operators choose to replace older equipment with newer
technology. In future work, if any impairment arises from
bursty traffic it needs to be addressed.

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