JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 27, NO.
13, JULY 1, 2009
Energy Consumption in Optical IP Networks
Jayant Baliga, Robert Ayre, Kerry Hinton, Wayne V. Sorin, Fellow, IEEE, and Rodney S. Tucker, Fellow, IEEE, OSA
Abstract—As community concerns about global energy con-
sumption grow, the power consumption of the Internet is becoming
an issue of increasing importance. In this paper, we present a net-
work-based model of power consumption in optical IP networks
and use this model to estimate the energy consumption of the
Internet. The model includes the core, metro and edge, access and
video distribution networks, and takes into account energy con-
sumption in switching and transmission equipment. We include
a number of access technologies, including digital subscriber line
with ADSL2+, fiber to the home using passive optical networks,
fiber to the node combined with very high-speed digital subscriber
line and point-to-point optical systems. In addition to estimating
the power consumption of today’s Internet, we make predictions
of power consumption in a future higher capacity Internet using
estimates of improvements in efficiency in coming generations
of network equipment. We estimate that the Internet currently
consumes about 0.4% of electricity consumption in broadband-en-
abled countries. While the energy efficiency of network equipment
will improve, and savings can be made by employing optical by-
pass and multicast, the power consumption of the Internet could
approach 1% of electricity consumption as access rates increase.
The energy consumption per bit of data on the Internet is around
75 J at low access rates and decreases to around 2–4 J at an
access rate of 100 Mb/s.
Index Terms—Access networks, Internet power consumption, IP
routers, optical bypass.
I. INTRODUCTION
T HE Internet is the foundation of global telecommunica-
tion and has become integral to the sustained growth of
the world economy. Growth of the Internet has been made pos-
sible by the availability of inexpensive, high-capacity optical
transmission and IP-based routing technologies for the network
core. Increasing use of optical technologies in customer access
networks provides a means for the delivery of high-capacity
services to end users. As Internet traffic increases due to in-
creasing numbers of Internet users and higher bandwidth ser-
vices, the quantity, capacity, and energy consumption of trans-
mission and switching equipment required to route this traffic
must also grow. Energy consumption is becoming a key envi-
ronmental, social, and political issue [1]. In addition, the engi-
neering challenges of managing the power consumption of large
Manuscript received June 27, 2008; revised October 20, 2008, November 11,
2008. First published April 17, 2009; current version published June 26, 2009.
This work was supported in part by the Australian Research Council and by
Cisco Systems.
J. Baliga is with the ARC Special Research Centre for Ultra-Broadband In-
formation Networks (CUBIN), Department of Electrical and Electronic Engi-
neering, University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia, and also with also
with National ICT Australia (e-mail: jbaliga@ee.unimelb.edu.au).
R. Ayre, K. Hinton, W. Sorin, and R. Tucker are with the ARC Special Re-
search Centre for Ultra-Broadband Information Networks (CUBIN), Depart-
ment of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Melbourne, Vic-
toria 3010, Australia (e-mail: r.ayre@ee.unimelb.edu.au; k.hinton@ee.unimelb.
edu.au; waynesorin@ieee.org; r.tucker@ee.unimelb.edu.au).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JLT.2008.2010142
0733-8724/$25.00 © 2009 IEEE
2391
switching centers and especially data centers are becoming a
matter of increasing concern [2]. This raises the issue of whether
the Internet may ultimately be constrained not by the capacity
of optical and electronic technologies, but rather by their energy
consumption [2]–[8].
In this paper, we present a new network-based model of the
power consumption in an optical IP network formulated using
data from major equipment vendors. The new model uses a sim-
ilar methodology to our previous work on this topic [4]–[6], but
includes a higher level of detail in the network model and in-
corporates a model of improvements in equipment energy effi-
ciency over time. Our model includes the network infrastructure
required to service increasing per customer traffic volumes, in-
cluding core, metro, and access networks, and takes account of
energy consumption in switching and transmission equipment.
A video distribution network (VDN) that provides Internet Pro-
tocol Television (IPTV) services, such as multicast video and
video on demand (VOD), is included in the model. In the access
network, we consider established digital subscriber line (DSL)
technologies, as well as a number of competing high-speed tech-
nologies including passive optical networks (PON), fiber to the
node (FTTN), and point-to-point (PtP) optical systems.
In order to gauge the energy consumption of an IP network,
we calculate the network power consumption as a function of
the access rate to customers. To calculate the power consump-
tion for a given access rate, we have carried out a “paper de-
sign” of a network that can provide that access rate to cus-
tomers (i.e., subscribers) in a broadband-enabled country. We
have then to determine the per customer power consumption
for all the equipment in the network. Our calculations include
all transmission and switching equipment in the network, in-
cluding the power consumed by the customer’s optical network
unit (ONU) or modem. The model presented here does not in-
clude data centers or servers, or customer premises networking
and computer equipment. These items of equipment consume a
significant amount of energy [9], but are beyond the scope of
the present paper.
Using the above approach, we estimate the power consump-
tion of the Internet to be about 0.4% of the total electricity con-
sumption in broadband-enabled countries, where access rates
are on the order of 1–5 Mb/s. We also forecast, based on cur-
rent trends of improvements in efficiency of network equipment,
the future energy consumption of the Internet at higher access
rates. We show that the core optical transport (wavelength di-
vision multiplexed links) accounts for only a small fraction of
the total energy consumed by the Internet, with most energy
being consumed by the access network and core network routing
functions. Optical bypass is an important strategy for managing
growth of core network power consumption in the future. All
optical access using PON and PtP are shown to be more en-
ergy efficient than FTTN or asymmetric digital subscriber line
(ADSL) network architectures. We conclude the paper with a
2392
Fig. 1. Schematic of a network structure with access network options including an asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL), a passive optical network (PON),
fiber to the node (FTTN) and point-to-point optical (PtP). The public Internet includes all equipment in the metro edge and core networks except the edge Ethernet
switch. A is the total per customer capacity, A the per customer capacity in the public Internet, and A the per customer capacity in the VDN.
summary of methods that may be used to mitigate the increase
in energy consumption.
We have deliberately modeled a minimalist network, based on
a national-scale operator. We have not included the internetwork
gateways used when multiple service providers share network
facilities. In addition, it must be noted that any future network
will inevitably incorporate a large amount of legacy network
equipment, such as IP over asynchronous transfer mode (ATM)
over synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) over wavelength di-
vision multiplexed (WDM) fiber. Such overlays in legacy net-
works often result in large power inefficiencies because of the
need for electronic processing to interface between the network
layers. This paper therefore provides a conservative (i.e., under)
estimate of the energy consumption.
II. NETWORK STRUCTURE
A traditional IP network, as used by Internet service providers
(ISPs), can logically be split into three main domains—the ac-
cess network, the metropolitan and edge network, and the net-
work core, as shown in a simplified form in the top part of Fig. 1.
As service providers move to offer IPTV services, additional in-
frastructure to deliver video program content to the access node
will be needed, and one method to achieve this is a VDN as
depicted in Fig. 1. The public Internet commonly refers to the
switching, routing and transport equipment in the metro, edge
and core networks. In our paper, we share the edge Ethernet
switch between the “public Internet” and the VDN. In this sec-
tion, we outline technologies commonly used in high-capacity
IP-based networks and the network models for which we de-
velop power consumption metrics.
The architecture in Fig. 1 represents a minimal network con-
figuration for a single network provider having dedicated infra-
structure at each of the core, metro, and access domains, and a
video delivery network. Smaller regional service providers may
operate infrastructure at the access and the metro domains, then
peer with other regional operators or large network operators be-
fore connecting to the core network domain. This entails addi-
tional gateway and peering routers which we have not included
in this analysis, and as pointed out above, the results reported
here are thus somewhat conservative (i.e., under estimate).
JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 27, NO. 13, JULY 1, 2009
In the following, we describe the elements in Fig. 1 in greater
detail.
A. Access Network
The access network connects each home to one of the edge
switches in the provider’s network. There are several different
technologies in use today, and more are in development [10].
Shown in Fig. 1 is the commonly used DSL and three promising
candidates for future high access rates PON, FTTN, and PtP
optical systems.
With ADSL, copper pairs, originally installed to deliver a
fixed-line telephone service, are used to also deliver a broad-
band service [10]. The telephone service, which uses the band
below 3.4 kHz, is left in place, and the higher frequency band is
used for high-speed broadband services.
Copper pair-based access technologies, such as ADSL, are
limited in capacity by usable bandwidth and reach, so many
ISPs have begun installing fiber-based technologies. Fiber to the
premises installations most commonly use a passive shared op-
tical network (PON), in which a single fiber from the network
node feeds one or more clusters of customers through a pas-
sive splitter [10]. An access concentrator or optical line terminal
(OLT) is located at the local exchange, and serves a number of
access modems or ONUs located at each customer premises.
Each customer ONU in a cluster connects via a fiber to the
splitter, and from there shares the same fiber connection to the
OLT. ONUs communicate with the OLT in a time multiplexed
order, with the OLT assigning time slots to each ONU based on
its relative demand.
In areas where customers are already served by good-quality
copper pairs, a hybrid FTTN technology may be used [10]. Ded-
icated fiber is provided from a network switch to a DSL access
multiplexer (DSLAM) in a street cabinet close to a cluster of
customers, and high-speed copper pair cable technologies such
as very high-speed digital subscriber line (VDSL) are used for
the final feed to the customer premises.
As demand for services and the resulting traffic per customer
grows, PON and FTTN architectures can be enhanced through
the use of additional wavelength channels (WDM) [11].
BALIGA et al.: ENERGY CONSUMPTION IN OPTICAL IP NETWORKS
The highest access speed network today would employ a ded-
icated fiber between the customer premises and the network ac-
cess node in a PtP optical network [10]. The customer premises
would employ an optical media converter (OMC) to convert the
electrical signal used inside the home to an optical signal.
For each of these technologies, the terminal unit (DSLAM for
ADSL, OLT for PON and FTTN, and the Ethernet switch for PtP
in Fig. 1) commonly takes the form of a switch, with line cards
appropriate to the access technology (PON, FTTN, PtP) facing
the subscriber. The switch has parallel backhaul links to the
metro and edge network and facilitates concentration of traffic.
This concentration/aggregation of traffic reduces demands in the
core, VDN, metro and edge networks.
The total per customer capacity of the network , is shown
in Fig. 1. The per customer capacity is the total number of
downstream bits, measured at the network side of the terminal
unit, divided by the number of customers connected to that ter-
minal unit. can be smaller than the average bit rate seen by a
customer if there is multicasting, because some downstream bits
are being shared by customers. Note that we define a “customer”
as one household. In this paper, we use the terms “customer”,
“subscriber,” and “home” interchangeably. is given by
(1)
where and are the per customer capacities in the public
Internet and VDN, respectively. is the multicast video
traffic. The significance of (1) is described in a greater detail
in Section III-B.
B. Metro and Edge Network
The metro and edge network serves as the interface between
the access network and the core network. The metro and edge
network includes edge Ethernet switches, broadband network
gateway (BNG) or broadband remote access server (BRAS)
routers, and provider edge routers. Edge Ethernet switches
concentrate traffic from a large number of access nodes and
uplink to two or more BNG or BRAS routers. The edge switch
connects to two or more BNG or BRAS routers to provide
redundancy. The BNG or BRAS routers perform access rate
control, authentication, and security services, and connect
to multiple provider edge routers to increase reliability. The
provider edge routers connect to the core of the network.
C. Video Distribution Network
The performance requirements for an IPTV multicast and
video-on-demand (VOD) service are markedly different to those
of a traditional Internet service, especially in terms of allowable
packet delay variation and packet loss [12]. This traffic could be
carried over the same physical metropolitan and core networks
above, in reserved streams configured to provide quality of ser-
vice (QoS) guarantees, but is generally transported over a ded-
icated network and combined with “best effort” Internet traffic
at the edge Ethernet switch [12]. As shown in Fig. 1, the VDN
bypasses the BRAS or BNG routers and so frees them from the
workload involved in authenticating, accounting, and manage-
ment functions. These are functions that the content provider
2393
would in any case perform at its own server. The power con-
sumption of these servers and authentication systems are not in-
cluded in our model. The VDN has a tree structure, unlike the
meshed structure of the core network, with the server at the root
of the tree and links to the edge Ethernet switch at the ends of
the branches [12]. The VDN has redundant routers and links
that are not shown in Fig. 1 for simplicity, but are included in
our model.
D. Core Network
The core network comprises a small number of large routers
in major population centers. These core routers perform all the
necessary routing and also serve as the gateway to neighboring
core nodes. The core routers of any one network are often highly
meshed, but have only a few links to the networks of other
providers. High-capacity WDM fiber links interconnect these
routers and connect to networks of other operators. Typically,
the WDM links in today’s network comprise 10 Gb/s Packet
over SONET (PoS), SDH, or 10 Gb/s Ethernet, or for longhaul
links 40 Gb/s PoS or SDH.
III. NETWORK MODEL
To calculate the power consumed by the entire network, we
model all parts of the network in Fig. 1 using data representative
of commercial equipment. The equipment used in our model is
representative of the equipment for which manufacturers openly
publish power consumption data. The stated capacity of equip-
ment in this paper is the full-duplex capacity.
A. Access Network
In this section, we describe the equipment used in our model
of the access network.
1) Asymmetric digital subscriber line: Typical consumer
DSL services are ADSL services with download speeds higher
than upload speeds. One of the most common DSL tech-
nologies currently in operation is ADSL2+, which provides
theoretical maximum speeds of 24 Mb/s downstream and
1 Mb/s upstream. In our model, the DSLAM is an Alcatel
Stinger FS+ DSL Access Concentrator [13] and each customer
uses a D-Link DSL-502T modem [14]. Dedicated copper pairs
are used to connect each customer modem to the DSLAM at
the local exchange.
2) Passive optical network: The capacity available per cus-
tomer in PON networks is determined by backhaul capacity,
ONU access rates, and the number of ONUs that share a connec-
tion to an OLT. The number of customers that share a connection
to an OLT is generally 32 or 64 [15]. In our model, we consider a
G-PON access network, providing asymmetric 2.4 Gb/s down-
stream and 1.2 Gb/s upstream from the ONU to the OLT. The
particular equipment from which specifications were taken for
the model are the Wave7 ONT-G1000i ONU [16] and the Hi-
tachi 1220 OLT [15].
3) Fiber to the node: In an FTTN network using VDSL,
each remote node houses a VDSL DSLAM which communi-
cates with several homes through the copper wire and connects
back to the OLT through an ONU. The equipment used in the
model is an NEC AM3160 multiservice access platform [17] at
2394
the remote node and an NEC VF200F6 VDSL modem [18] at
each home.
4) PtP optical access network: In our model of a PtP net-
work, a Cisco 4503 Ethernet switch provides a gigabit Ethernet
link to up to 116 homes [19]. Each home uses a TC Commu-
nications TC3300 optical media converter [20] to convert the
electrical signal used in the home network to an optical signal
for transmission over fiber.
B. Oversubscription
Most data traffic is bursty in nature, and traffic from common
Internet applications today (e.g., web browsing, email) is es-
pecially so. Customers are often offline, and when active com-
monly send or receive brief bursts of data interspersed with pe-
riods of reading. Network operators take advantage of the vari-
ations in traffic from individual customers by statistically mul-
tiplexing the traffic flows from a large number of customers.
Packets of data from individual customers are initially buffered,
then delivered through the transport network at a time deter-
mined by the availability of network capacity and the relative
priority of the packet in relation to other packets awaiting trans-
port. In periods of network congestion, the capacity available
to each customer is reduced, and traffic flows are moderated
through selective dropping of packets.
In this paper, we characterize the capacity available to each
customer by the peak access rate. The peak access rate is the ac-
cess rate advertised and sold to customers by the ISP. However,
backhaul and core networks are dimensioned by network oper-
ators to provide a lower worst case minimum transmission rate
to every customer. The ratio of the advertised peak access rate
to this minimum rate is referred to as the oversubscription rate.
As IP networks are increasingly used for large file transfers, and
for streaming services such as conferencing, IP telephony, and
ad hoc IP video, traffic demand is becoming both much greater
and relatively more constant. As a consequence, there will be
increased pressure in the future for network operators to reduce
the oversubscription rate.
We model the network in terms of a peak access rate of
Mb/s per customer and an oversubscription rate for public
Internet traffic. During the busiest period of the day, the min-
imum capacity available to a customer from the public Internet
is (see Fig. 1), given by
(2)
where is the oversubscription rate. In the model, we assume
all statistical multiplexing gain occurs at the DSLAM in ADSL,
at the OLT in PON and FTTN, and at the small Ethernet switch
in the case of PtP. The network traffic from the access network
entering the metropolitan network is assumed to be smooth and
at near capacity, with little to no fluctuation that would enable
further statistical multiplexing gains.
In an oversubscribed network, variations in packet delay
(jitter) and packet loss events arise, and these present problems
for real-time services such as IPTV. Hence operators com-
monly provide a dedicated VDN, or dedicated capacity in their
metropolitan and core networks for those services. In the case
of IPTV, the operator need only transport a single stream of
JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 27, NO. 13, JULY 1, 2009
each individual channel to each network edge, and replicate
that copy at the edge node for delivery to those customers
requesting that channel. This process is known as multicasting.
Although multicasting places added demands on the edge
switches, it reduces metropolitan, core, and VDN traffic. In our
model, is multicast video traffic on the final link to the
customer and is given by
(3)
where in PON, FTTN, and PtP, is the number of backhaul
links from the terminal unit (OLT for PON and FTTN, and Eth-
ernet switch for PtP in Fig. 1) to the metro and edge network
to carry multicast video services. As we will see, the per cus-
tomer capacity required in the VDN to support multicast traffic
is negligibly small. is the number of customers sharing a
terminal unit and is fully defined in Section IV-A.
VOD and other premium IP services can also be provided
through the VDN, but these services are not suitable for mul-
ticast. Demand for these services may be restricted in order to
match the capacity available by means of session admission con-
trol. Examples of premium IP services include voice and other
services with a guaranteed level of QoS. In our model, (see
Fig. 1) is the per customer guaranteed capacity into the OLT re-
served for VOD and premium IP services. We note that when
choosing , a network provider will generally assume that
only a small percentage of customers will access VOD and/or
premium IP services simultaneously.
C. Metro and Edge Network
On the network side, the access network terminal units are
typically connected by Gigabit Ethernet (GE) lines to an edge
Ethernet switch. The number of DSLAMs (ADSL), OLTs (PON
and FTTN), and small Ethernet switches (PtP) that are supported
by the edge Ethernet switch depends on the details of the ac-
cess technologies, access rates, and the oversubscription rate.
We have modeled each access network such that the edge Eth-
ernet switch is filled to capacity. The edge Ethernet switch used
in our model is the Cisco Catalyst 6513 switch [19]. The Eth-
ernet switch uplinks to two or more BNG routers, which perform
traffic management and authentication. The minimum of two
uplinks is for redundancy, and in this model we include redun-
dancy for all network elements on the network side of the edge
Ethernet switch. In our model, we use the Cisco 10008 router as
our BNG router [19]. Each Cisco 10008 router has eight 1 Gb/s
connections to Ethernet switches and eight 1 Gb/s connections
to provider edge routers.
The provider edge routers groom and encapsulate the IP
packets into a SONET/SDH format for transmission to the
network core [19], [21]. The provider edge router functions
as a label edge router in a multiprotocol label switching
(MPLS)-enabled core network, setting up label switched paths
and attaching MPLS headers to IP packets. As we are modeling
a high-growth and high-capacity scenario, we use the large
Cisco 12816 [19] as a provider edge router. This device is
typical of large routers available from other manufacturers.
Each provider edge router connects to the core network via up
to 14 10 Gb/s packet-over-SONET (PoS) links, and to 20 BNGs
BALIGA et al.: ENERGY CONSUMPTION IN OPTICAL IP NETWORKS
each via 8 1 Gb/s links. We do not consider architectures
where provider edge routers interconnect directly, but assume
that all routing is handled by the network core routers.
D. Video Distribution Network
The VDN transports video and other premium service traffic
from the content servers to the metro and edge network. The
VDN includes a number of QoS-enabled routers. In this anal-
ysis, we have employed the Cisco 7613 router [19] as represen-
tative of this class of router. As noted earlier, the VDN connects
directly to Ethernet switches in the metro network, and its traffic
does not pass through the BNG or BRAS routers. The VDN in-
stead uses its own per stream, rather than per customer, authen-
tication systems.
Our model includes the routing and transport components of
the VDN and does not include the authentication servers or con-
tent servers which are more typical of data center infrastructure.
Transport through the VDN is performed using 10 Gb/s PoS or
SDH links to achieve high reliability. Routers at the edge of the
VDN connect to the edge Ethernet switches via 10 Gb/s Ethernet
links and to other VDN routers via 12 10 Gb/s PoS links.
E. Core Network
In today’s network, routing is performed by large core routers
[19], [21]. An example of a core router is the Cisco CRS-1 [19].
The core routers are interconnected through 40 Gb/s PoS links
and connect to the edge routers through 10 Gb/s PoS links. The
number of links required to interconnect the routers depends
entirely on the composition of the traffic.
Currently, most IP packets transit multiple core routers and
are fully processed by the routers in each intermediate node.
This significantly increases the energy consumed in transporting
that packet from source to destination. However, increasingly
bypass is being used at the SONET/SDH layer or the optical
transport layer as a means to reduce the need for such processing
at the intermediate routers [22]. Both avoid the processing as-
sociated with IP routing, including switching, buffering, and IP
table lookup at every node. Optical bypass allows the packet to
remain in the optical domain and thus avoid O-E-O conversions
and associated overheads [5]. In our model, we determine en-
ergy consumption as a function of the average number of core
router hops taken by packets. This is compared against scenarios
where optical add/drop multiplexers and all-optical crosscon-
nects implement optical bypass of intermediate routers thereby
reducing the number of core router hops.
F. Equipment Efficiency and Capacity
Today’s high-end routers such as the Cisco CRS-1 and the Ju-
niper T1600 provide throughputs of around 1 Tb/s and consume
approximately 10 kW of power. This corresponds to an energy
consumption of about 10 nJ per bit of data. It is reasonable to ex-
pect that the efficiency of future generations of router will show
improvements over this figure, largely due to improvements in
CMOS technology. In recent years, there have been exponential
improvements in efficiency of routers and switches [7], [23].
Our previous estimates of power consumption in the Internet
[4]–[6], [8] did not include estimates of increased efficiency in
future generations of routers and switches. In this paper, we in-
2395
clude improvements in power consumption of the Internet by
incorporating estimates of future efficiency gains.
Using an exponential model of efficiency improvement, if a
state-of-the-art router or switch has capacity and has power
consumption , then in years a state-of-the-art router will
have a capacity and power consumption given by
(4)
where is the annual rate of improvement of state-of-the-art
technology. In [7], Neilson found that over the past ten years
a 2 increase in throughput of the state-of-the-art equipment
has been accompanied by a 1.4 increase in power. In addition,
router capacity per rack has increased by 1.56 per year. Com-
bining these two trends, Neilson concluded that state-of-the-art
router efficiency is improving by 20% per annum. This corre-
sponds to a technology improvement rate in (4).
To achieve a technology improvement rate of 20% per annum
across the whole network would require the network operator
to regularly replace all of its network equipment with state-of-
the-art equipment. In practice, most equipment will remain in
service for a number of years. Therefore, the overall technology
improvement factor across the network will be somewhat less
than the 20% figure for the new equipment added each year.
Our objective in this paper is to calculate power consumption
as a function of the capacity required to support a given access
rate. To include estimates of efficiency improvements we must
relate the peak access rate to router efficiency. It is widely
acknowledged that Internet traffic is growing exponentially and
that this trend will continue. The relation between the current
access rate and the future access rate after years is
(5)
A recent Cisco white paper [24] predicts that consumer public
Internet traffic will grow at 42% per year (double every two
years). This corresponds to in (5).
The trends in router capacity and energy efficiency are
mapped over time in Fig. 2. The figure shows (on the left
vertical axis) the peak access rate against time for oversub-
scription rates and , and a per-year traffic
growth rate of 42%, i.e., . This curve is based on a
2008 per customer public Internet capacity kb/s, cor-
responding to a peak access rate Mb/s and
Mb/s for oversubscription rates of 10 and 25, respectively.
We assume a current per customer public Internet capacity
kb/s because the highest speed networks currently
deployed deliver at most 100 kb/s per customer capacity
to residential customers. We note that the important parameter
is the per customer public Internet capacity and not the
oversubscription rate . The per customer Internet capacity
determines the size and power consumption of the Internet.
The oversubscription rate simply translates the per customer
capacity to the peak access rate, which is the access rate adver-
tised/sold to customers.
The right vertical axis in Fig. 2 is the energy consumption
per bit of a core router against time for technology
2396
Fig. 2. Change in the peak access rate (A ) and router energy consumption
per bit (P =C ) over time.
improvement rates of 0.2 and 0.1. To obtain a direct rela-
tion between the trend for access rate growth and technology
improvement, we substitute (5) into (4) to eliminate the time
variable and obtain the following relation between router and
switch efficiency and the access rate :
(6)
In the following sections, we calculate the power consumption
using current technology ( and ) but incorporate estimates
of efficiency gains over time in technology in the core, VDN,
metro and edge networks in the results. We do not include an
improvement factor in access network technology because this
equipment is replaced less frequently. The optical components
of WDM equipment, including optical multiplexers, doped
fibers, etc. have more limited scope for improvements in ef-
ficiency. Fortunately, a majority of the power consumption in
WDM equipment is in the optoelectronic components, such
as pump lasers, and in the electronic components that perform
the control and management functions for the WDM system.
These should improve in efficiency in future generations. We
assume that 90% of the power consumed in WDM equipment
is in these subsystems. The relation between WDM efficiency
and the access rate is
(7)
where is the capacity of a state-of-the-art WDM
system and its power consumption.
In our estimates of improvements in efficiency, we assume
that current trends continue, and that as access rates increase
over time, (given by (5)), switch and router efficiency will im-
prove independently (given by (4)). Equation (6) relates the two
independent trends.
IV. POWER CONSUMPTION
We now calculate the per customer power consumed in each
section of the network using data from manufacturer data sheets.
Typical power consumption values of network equipment are
sometimes not readily available, and data sheets normally quote
JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 27, NO. 13, JULY 1, 2009
the maximum power values, which in turn are often the rated
power of the power supplies. To handle this uncertainty in the
data, where possible, we use the heat dissipation of the given
network equipment to estimate the power consumption. To cal-
culate cooling requirements, we assume that for every watt of
power consumed in metro and core networks, another watt of
power is required for cooling [25].
A. Power Consumption of the Access Network
The per customer power consumption of all four access tech-
nologies can be expressed as
(8)
where , and 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.
and are the number of customers or subscribers that
share a remote node and the number of customers that share
a terminal unit, respectively. The last term on the right-hand
side of (8) includes a factor of 2 to account for additional
overheads such as external power supplies and cooling require-
ments [25]. Table I lists the values of the parameters for each
access technology. On the left-hand side of this table are the
parameters referred to in this section and on the right-hand
side the parameters are normalized on a per customer basis,
as discussed in Section V-A. In the following, we explain the
details of the parameters for each access technology.
1) Digital subscriber line: The ADSL2+ DSLAM supports
1008 customers and consumes approximately 1.7 kW. Our mea-
surements found that the customer modem consumes 5 W. We
assume a peak access rate of 15 Mb/s, lower than the theoretical
maximum of 24 Mb/s, to account for degradations in speeds due
to crosstalk, distance, and noise.
2) Passive optical network: The ONU consumes approxi-
mately 5 W and has a peak access rate of 1 Gb/s [16]. The re-
mote node does not consume any power as it includes just a
simple passive splitter. Each OLT chassis consumes 1.34 kW
[15]. This OLT chassis is capable of controlling up to 32 G-PON
lines (1024 customers) and has 16 1 Gb/s uplink ports.
3) Fiber to the node: A VDSL2 line card supports 16 cus-
tomers and consumes approximately 42 W [26]. An additional
5 W is consumed for an ONU to link the VDSL DLSAM to
the OLT [16]. The VDSL2 customer modem consumes 10 W
and has a peak access rate of 50 Mb/s [18]. We limit the max-
imum number of customers per OLT to 8192 with the maximum
number of DSLAMs per OLT being 512 and a maximum of 16
customers per DSLAM.
4) PtP optical access network: A Cisco 4503 switch has 116
GE ports, 64 Gb/s of switching capacity and consumes 474 W
[19]. The optical media converter at each home consumes 4 W
[20]. In this architecture, there is no remote node. The number
of customers per Cisco 4503 Ethernet switch (PtP) is given
by
(9)
BALIGA et al.: ENERGY CONSUMPTION IN OPTICAL IP NETWORKS
TABLE I
VALUES OF ACCESS NETWORK PARAMETERS USED IN SECTIONS IV-A AND V-A
where the first term is due to the limit of port capacity, and the
second term is due to the limit of switching capacity.
B. Power Consumption of the Metro and Edge Network
The per customer power consumption of the metro network
can be expressed as
(10)
where is the per customer power consumption of the edge
Ethernet switches, while and are the total
power consumption of a gateway router and provider edge
router, respectively. The parameters and
are the capacities of the gateway routers and provider edge
routers, respectively. In the following paragraphs, we give
estimated values for these parameters. The first factor of 2 is
to include the requirements for cooling. The second factor of 2
is to include the requirements for redundancy upstream of the
Ethernet switch.
1) Ethernet switches: The number of Ethernet switches is
determined by the number of ports required, which is in turn
determined by the number of OLTs or small Ethernet switches.
As the access rate increases, the number of OLTs or Ethernet
switches required increases. A Cisco Catalyst 6513 switch has
384 GE ports, a switching capacity of 720 Gb/s and consumes
3.21 kW [19]. The per customer power consumption of the Eth-
ernet switches is given by
(11)
where the first term in the numerator represents the number of
GE ports used by a single terminal unit. The second and third
terms in the numerator represent the number of ports taken to
connect customers connected to that terminal unit to the VDN
and public Internet, respectively. The numerator is normalized
by the number of customers per terminal unit and multiplied
by the power consumption of the Ethernet switch, giving us the
power per customer. The factor of 2 is to include the require-
ments for redundancy upstream of the Ethernet switch. As be-
fore, is the number of backhaul links from the terminal unit
to the edge Ethernet switch to support multicast video services
(see Section III-B). For multicast video, at most one copy of
a channel is sent to each terminal unit, where it is replicated
to the customers that request that particular channel. Similarly,
only one copy of a channel is sent to the edge Ethernet switch
2397
from the VDN where it is replicated to the terminal units that re-
quest that channel. This results in over 20 000 customers sharing
Gb/s of capacity from the edge Ethernet switch to the
VDN. The per customer capacity from the edge Ethernet switch
to the VDN required to support multicast is therefore negligibly
small.
2) Gateway routers: The Cisco 10008 gateway router con-
sumes 1.1 kW and has a capacity to support 8 Gb/s [19].
3) Provider edge routers: A Cisco 12816 router consumes
4.21 kW and in the configuration used in our model has a ca-
pacity of 160 Gb/s [19].
C. Power Consumption of the Video Distribution Network
It will be recalled that multicasting in the VDN markedly
reduces the traffic volumes in the network for multicast mate-
rial. Our model thus does not include the power consumption to
transport multicast traffic through the VDN as the per customer
power consumption of this transport is negligibly small.
A Cisco 7613 router consumes 4.6 kW and serves a capacity
of 120 Gb/s [19]. If we assume that traffic through the VDN
takes two hops, the per customer power consumption of the
VDN to support VOD and premium IP services, , is given
by
(12)
where the factor of 4 accounts for the power requirements for
cooling and redundancy. The factor of 3 is included because
three routers are transited for two hops.
D. Power Consumption of the Core Network
A single-rack Cisco CRS-1 core router consumes approx-
imately 10.9 kW and has a full-duplex switching capacity of
640 Gb/s [19]. As the interconnection structure of the core
routers is highly dependent on the nature of the traffic, we
estimate the total power consumed by the core network by con-
sidering the total switching capacity required and the average
number of routers through which traffic is required to pass.
In today’s Internet, packets traverse an average of 12–14 hops
between source and destination [27]. Most Internet traffic is
from the customer premises to a web server, which is often
connected directly to the network core. In our model, customer
traffic must traverse three hops to reach the network core so we
assume an average 10 core hops, giving us an average of 13 hops
in total. Peer-to-peer traffic may traverse fewer than 10 core
2398
routers but will traverse a greater number of metro and edge
routers. Our results remain conservative (i.e., under estimate)
because these metro and edge routers are in general smaller and
less efficient than core routers.
The per customer power consumed by the core node is
(13)
where denotes the number of core node hops. The factor of
8 at the front is required firstly because core routers are usu-
ally provisioned for future growth of double the current peak
demand [28], secondly to account for the power requirements
for cooling and finally a factor of 2 for redundancy.
E. Transport Systems
Edge and core routers can be provisioned with interfaces
suitable for operation on a dedicated fiber over city-scale
distances up to approximately 80 km. Longer links between
metro edge router sites and core router sites, and intercity
links more commonly employ WDM transport systems. These
provide very long system spans, but require optical signals
to be generated by high-performance modulators on specific
wavelengths. A network operator may elect to provision routers
with short-reach optical interfaces and WDM transport systems
with optical transponders to deliver the higher signal quality
required for longhaul systems, or may elect to provision routers
with more costly, but higher performance interfaces that are
directly compatible with the WDM transport system. The latter
option is more energy efficient, and has been assumed for this
model. The terrestrial WDM line terminal in this case provides
mainly optical functions of channel power matching, ampli-
fication, and dispersion compensation. We model terrestrial
links from edge routers to core routers, and both terrestrial and
undersea links between core routers.
1) Terrestrial WDM systems: The Fujitsu Flashwave 7700
WDM terminal systems consume 811 W for every 44 channels
[29], with each channel operating at 40 Gb/s. If the distance be-
tween the two terminal systems is greater than 100 km, an in-
termediate line amplifier is required and consumes 622 W for
every 44 channels [29]. In this model, the average distance be-
tween terrestrially connected core routers is 1 500 km and so
14 intermediate line amplifiers and two terminal system are re-
quired for every 44 channels. The per customer power consumed
by the core terrestrial WDM links is given by
(14)
where is the average number of core hops, and is the pro-
portion of traffic going to neighboring nodes through undersea
WDM systems. The figure of 235 W is the cumulative power
per channel. The factor of 4 at the front accounts for the power
requirements for cooling and redundancy. In addition, we halve
the number of hops because many of the core hops are intra-of-
fice and so WDM transport is not used. Edge routers are pre-
sumed to be located within 80 km of a core router and so do not
require WDM transponder systems.
2) Undersea WDM systems: Current undersea cables sup-
port 64 wavelengths at 10 Gb/s using four fiber pairs [30]. The
cable power feed has a resistance of 1 /km, and approximately
JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 27, NO. 13, JULY 1, 2009
1 A of dc is used to power the repeaters [31]. A repeater is re-
quired every 50 km and each repeater consumes 40 W [31]. The
terminal systems used are similar to those used in terrestrial
WDM systems, but do include special transponders and con-
sume 9 kW per cable [29], [31]. Assuming 80% efficiency in
the power feeder equipment and a transpacific link of 8 000 km,
the per customer power consumed by the undersea WDM sys-
tems is given by
(15)
where the factor of 4 includes a factor of 2 for redundancy and
a further factor of 2 because undersea WDM systems are gener-
ally provisioned for future growth of double the current demand.
The figure of 280 W is the cumulative power per channel. The
power required to cool the power feeder equipment and terminal
systems has been included. From (14) and (15), it is clear that the
increased length of undersea systems results in approximately
4–5 times more power usage than in core terrestrial systems. In
our analysis, we will assume that 20% of traffic uses undersea
systems .
V. RESULTS
We use the above model to calculate the total per customer
power consumption of the Internet for peak access rates from
1 Mb/s to 400 Mb/s. We also use the model to determine the
proportion of the total power that is used in each part of the
network and analyze some of the network architecture choices
that affect power consumption.
A. Power Consumption of Access Networks
Table I shows the per customer backhaul capacity (maximum
) and per customer power consumption of each access net-
work. The power consumption of each access network is de-
pendent on the equipment used and its capacity. Per customer
capacity can be increased by increasing backhaul capacity and
switching capacity, or reducing the number of customers that
share the terminal unit (DSLAM for ADSL, OLT for PON and
FTTN, and Ethernet switch for PtP in Fig. 1). However, in-
creasing per customer capacity will result in increased power
consumption. The per customer backhaul capacity can in theory
be increased up to the technology limit of the access technology.
We again note that the average data rate seen by the customer
can be greater than the maximum and this occurs when mul-
ticasting is performed at the terminal unit. In a network with
multicasting, multiple customers are using/sharing some of the
bits.
Table I also shows the energy consumption per bit for each
access network when it is operating at full capacity. Operating
an access network below its full capacity results in increased
energy per bit consumption. The most energy efficient of the
access networks we considered is PON for low access rates and
PtP for very high access rates. ADSL2+ is efficient at low access
rates, but is only capable of peak access rates of 10–20 Mb/s
over distances below 2 km. PON has a reach of 20 km and has a
peak access rate of 2.4 Gb/s that is independent of the distance.
A network using an FTTN access network consumes 1.5 times
the power of a network using a PON access due to the extra
BALIGA et al.: ENERGY CONSUMPTION IN OPTICAL IP NETWORKS 2399

power required by the VDSL equipment at the cabinet. The PtP

access network has high power consumption but has the ability
to provide guaranteed per customer access rates of up to
Mb/s.
In ADSL, PON, and FTTN, the customer modem or ONU
consumes over 65% of the total power in the access network.
This implies that the power consumption of the access network
could be significantly reduced through the use of automated
sleep modes in customer premises network equipment [32]. As-
suming the Internet is used on average 8 h per day, automated
sleep modes in customer premises equipment could reduce the
power consumption of the access network by up to 40%.
B. Power Consumption of the Internet
Fig. 3 shows (on the left vertical axis) the total per customer
power consumption of the Internet versus peak access rate, for
access rates from 1 Mb/s to 400 Mb/s per home, with an over-
subscription rate in Fig. 3(a), and for in
Fig. 3(b). In Fig. 3(a), the total power consumption is based on
a PON in the access network and no VDN. Also included in the
plot is the per customer power consumption of the WDM links,
core routers, metro and edge networks, and PON and ADSL ac-
cess networks. The overall technology efficiency improvement
rate used in Fig. 3 is 10%, i.e., . At low access rates, the
access network consumes over 90% of the total network power.
At an access rate of 100 Mb/s and an oversubscription rate of
25, the core, metro and edge networks together consume 30% of
total network power with the WDM links consuming just 4.5%
of total network power.
Fig. 3(b) shows the total power consumption based on a PON
in the access network as well as the total power consumption
based on a PtP network in the access network. Also included in Fig. 3. Power consumption of the Internet with a PON or PtP network in the
the plot is the per customer power consumption of the WDM access network with no VDN and 10% router efficiency improvement per year.
Includes power consumption of WDM links, core routers, metro and edge net-
links, core routers, metro and edge networks, and PON and PtP
M = 25 M = 10
work, PON, ADSL and PtP access networks and total power consumption. (a)
access networks. As in Fig. 3(a), there is no VDN. With the . (b) .
lower oversubscription rate of in Fig. 3(b), the power
consumption of the routers and switches in the core, metro and
edge networks becomes dominant at a peak access rate of only In Fig. 3, the overall technology improvement rate used is
100 Mb/s. For a PON with an oversubscription rate , , (i.e., an overall 10% gain in efficiency per annum).
the curves for the power consumption in Fig. 3(b) terminate at a Fig. 4 shows the total per customer power consumption of the
per customer peak access rate of 160 Mb/s. For an OLT chassis Internet versus peak access rate for access rates from 1 Mb/s to
supporting its full complement of customers, this represents the 400 Mb/s per home when the overall technology improvement
typical per customer limit set by the backhaul capacity. Higher rate takes values of 20%, 10%, 5%, and 0% per year, and the
per customer peak access rates could be achieved by reducing oversubscription rate . The access network is a PON.
the number of customers connected to each OLT with present For technology improvement rates of 10% and 5%, the power
generation PON hardware, or would require a new generation consumption of the public Internet at high access rates increases
of OLT chassis with higher backhaul and switching capacity. to approximately 0.75% and 1.25% of the national electricity
Reducing the number of customers per OLT would entail more consumption, respectively. If there were no improvements in
equipment and thus increased power consumption. technology, the power consumption of the Internet would in-
The right vertical axes in Fig. 3(a) and (b) relate the power crease to over 2% of electricity consumption. If a net tech-
consumption as a percentage of total electricity consumption in nology improvement rate of 20% per annum could be achieved,
an Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development it would result in almost no increase in power consumption of
(OECD) country. To calculate this, we assume two persons per the Internet.
home and an average per-capita electricity generation in OECD
countries of 1 kW [33], corresponding to 2 kW per home. Based
C. Energy Consumption of the Internet
on this, the power consumption of the Internet increases from
0.4% of the electricity consumption at low access rates to 0.8% The data presented so far have been given in terms of power
of electricity consumption at high access rates. per customer. However, a more fundamental measure of energy
2400
Fig. 4. Power consumption of the Internet with no VDN for technology effi-
ciency improvement rates of 20%, 10%, 5%, and 0% per annum. The access
network is a PON.
Fig. 5. Per bit energy consumption of the Internet (no VDN) against the peak
access rate (bottom horizontal axis) and time (top horizontal axis) for technology
efficiency improvement rates of 20%, 10%, 5%, and 0% per annum.
consumption and the energy efficiency of the network is the en-
ergy consumed per bit of data transported. Fig. 5 shows the en-
ergy consumed per bit by the Internet against access rate (bottom
horizontal axis) and time (top horizontal axis, using a projected
growth rate of 42% per annum) when the technology improve-
ment rate is 20%, 10%, 5%, and 0% per year. At low bit rates,
the energy per bit is dominated by the fixed consumption of the
access network and the energy per bit drops rapidly as access
rates increase over time. At higher bit rates, the consumption
of the metro, edge and core networks becomes more significant
and the energy per bit decreases less rapidly. At low access rates,
the energy per bit is 75 J. At higher access rates, the energy per
bit ranges from 2 to 4 J depending on the technology improve-
ment rate.
D. Power Consumption in Video Distribution Networks
A VDN will use energy in performing its own functions, but
saves energy compared with the alternative of carrying multi-
cast-type traffic in the public Internet. To estimate the power
consumption of a VDN, we consider an example multicast ser-
vice offering of 300 standard definition (SD) channels, plus 150
JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 27, NO. 13, JULY 1, 2009
Fig. 6. Power consumption of a network with a VDN and a technology im-
provement rate of 10% per year. Includes power consumption of the VDN,
public Internet, PON access network, and total power consumption. The VDN
serves 300 SD multicast channels and 150 HD multicast channels. The VDN
also supports premium IP services (10% of customer traffic) as well as HD VOD
(20% simultaneous usage rate).
high definition (HD) channels. The SD channels are assumed
to be coded at a bit rate of 2 Mb/s, while the HD channels are
coded at a bit rate of 8 Mb/s. This service offering thus requires
two GE backhaul links from each OLT to the metro and edge
network for multicast video .
We add to that basic offering a VOD service, dimensioned to
allow personalized access to a HDTV stream by 20% of cus-
tomers simultaneously, leading to an average across the cus-
tomer base of 1.6 Mb/s. Finally, some customer services such
as voice, conferencing, corporate local area network access, etc.
are likely to require QoS features, so we allow for 10% of the ag-
gregate customer traffic to be handled by a premium IP Internet
network, which is similar to the VDN. Thus, we set a value for
in (12) of Mb/s , where, as before, is
the peak access rate.
Fig. 6 shows per customer power consumption of the full net-
work versus peak access rate when the above VDN is in opera-
tion. The technology efficiency improvements of 10% per year
begin at a peak access rate of 2.5 Mb/s. As stated earlier, the
public Internet includes the metro and edge network (except
edge Ethernet switches), core network, and WDM links. The
power consumption of the Ethernet switches is under 0.5 W per
customer and is not separately identified in the figure to improve
readability. We note that the peak access rate is now restricted
to 300 Mb/s, and this arises because some of the backhaul links
from the OLT chassis are assigned to transport multicast video,
VOD, and premium IP traffic. Despite the offering of an exten-
sive suite of these services, the increase in network power con-
sumption due to the VDN is just 10% for low access rates. For
access rates above 2.5 Mb/s, there is a decrease in power con-
sumption due to the combination of a constant demand (VOD
service) with improvements in energy efficiency.
It is important to note that at a peak access rate of 100 Mb/s,
the power consumption of the public Internet is approximately
0.2% of electricity consumption. Although this is a small per-
centage of total electricity consumption, much of it is being con-
sumed in a few highly concentrated locations. Supplying power
BALIGA et al.: ENERGY CONSUMPTION IN OPTICAL IP NETWORKS
Fig. 7. Power consumption of a network with video distribution performed via
the public Internet. Includes power consumption of public Internet, access net-
work, and total power consumption. Also included is the total power consump-
tion of a network where video is distributed through a VDN.
to these few centrally located buildings and dissipating the re-
sultant heat will be a formidable engineering challenge [2].
E. Video Distribution Via the Public Internet
We now consider an alternative scenario where video distri-
bution is performed through the public Internet, for example,
on a managed peering basis, rather than a dedicated VDN. With
this network structure, customers are free to access video from
a large range of sites rather than be restricted to video program-
ming available from their service provider. We assume SD video
usage, with a per customer rate of 2 Mb/s for video. The per cus-
tomer public Internet capacity rises to Mb/s.
The per customer rate for video is added to the public Internet
rate because a household may use the Internet and watch videos
simultaneously. The total per customer capacity be-
cause there is no VDN . Fig. 7 shows the per cus-
tomer power consumption of the network versus peak access
rate when video is distributed via the public Internet. Also in-
cluded in Fig. 7 is the power consumption of the network when
video is distributed via a VDN. At low access rates, a network
that distributes video content through the public Internet con-
sumes 50% more power than a network that distributes video
content through a dedicated VDN. The increase in power con-
sumption is due to the increased capacity required in the metro,
edge and core networks. The counterintuitive dip in power con-
sumption at peak access rates from 2.5 Mb/s to 17 Mb/s arises
from the assumption that the video bit rate remains constant over
time but router efficiency improves as peak access rates increase
over time.
VI. MANAGEMENT OF POWER CONSUMPTION IN
THE NETWORK
A. Optical Bypass
Optical bypass can be used to reduce the number of hops in
the network and thus the capacity requirements of core routers
[22], [34]. All-optical crossconnects or reconfigurable optical
add-drop multiplexers (ROADMs) route whole wavelengths
2401
H :
Fig. 8. Power consumption of the network with 0.5 core hops ( = 0 5) in-
cluding VDN, public Internet, PON access network, and total power consump-
tion. Optical bypass has reduced the number of core hops to 0.5. Also shown
for comparison is the total power consumption of a network with 10 core hops
(H = 10).
in the optical domain and thus avoid transiting through the IP
router. Thus, where traffic can be groomed into streams that do
not require routing at particular intermediate sites, it is possible
for those streams to bypass those routers and reduce energy
consumption. As an example, a 128 128 Calient optical
crossconnect consumes under 100 W [35]. At 40 Gb/s per
port, this corresponds to 5.12 Tb/s of capacity and therefore
consumes almost two orders of magnitude less energy per bit
than a large core router of equivalent capacity.
A lower bound for the total network power consumption can
be found by reducing the number of hops in the model to 0.5
core network hops, and is shown in Fig. 8 for a network with a
PON access network. The figure of 0.5 core network hops cor-
responds to 50% of the traffic in a core router being directed
to or from its dependent edge routers, and 50% directed to or
from a peer core router. The internal traffic thus uses zero core
hops, while the other 50% traverses just one core hop to a peer
router. This lower bound thus represents an extensive use of op-
tical bypass to create a virtual fully-meshed network and results
in a dramatic reduction in the power consumed in the network
with high access rates. At high access rates there is a 70% re-
duction in the power consumption of the public Internet and a
corresponding 30% reduction in total power consumption by the
extensive use of optical bypass.
B. Optical Packet and Burst Switching
A number of authors have suggested that optical packet
switching [36] and optical burst switching [37] may provide
an attractive alternative to electronic routers. It is beyond the
scope of this paper to explore this question in detail. However,
we note that to compete with high-capacity electronic routers,
optical packet and burst switches will need to consume less en-
ergy than existing and future generations of electronic routers.
As pointed out earlier, today’s high-end routers consume about
10 nJ per bit of data. To compete with future generations of
electronic routers, optical packet and burst switches will need
to consume less than about 1 nJ per bit [38]. This could prove
to be a considerable challenge [39].
2402
VII. CONCLUSION
We have presented a network-based model of the power con-
sumption in optical IP networks. We estimate the energy con-
sumption of ADSL, PON, FTTN, and PtP access networks as
well as the metro, edge, core and video distribution networks.
We estimate the power consumption of the Internet to be about
0.4% of electricity consumption in broadband-enabled coun-
tries and forecast that this could approach 1% as access rates in-
crease. The energy consumption per bit of data on the Internet is
around 75 J at low access rates and decreases to around 2–4 J
at access rates above 100 Mb/s.
The power consumption of the Internet in the short to medium
term future will be dominated by the customer premises equip-
ment and this should be an area of design attention. An auto-
mated sleep mode in parts of the ONU/modems is one method
to significantly reduce this power consumption. The combined
power consumption of the switching and routing equipment in
the Internet will grow as a percentage of total power consump-
tion as access rates increase. 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 in-
frastructure improves with successive generations of new tech-
nology. The overall energy efficiency of the network will de-
pend on how rapidly network operators choose to replace older
equipment with newer technology.
Managing the supply of electricity to these high energy-den-
sity centers, and removing the resulting heat dissipation is likely
to become a formidable engineering challenge. Video content
distribution through a dedicated video distribution network is
more efficient than distribution through the public Internet. Op-
tical bypass will be an important strategy for managing growth
in network power consumption and has the potential to reduce
total power consumption by up to 30% at access rates above 100
Mb/s.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors thank P. Magill of AT&T Labs for his extensive
helpful comments and suggestions.
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BALIGA et al.: ENERGY CONSUMPTION IN OPTICAL IP NETWORKS
Jayant Baliga received the B.Sc. degree in computer
science and the B.E. degree in electrical and elec-
tronic engineering (first class honors) in 2007 from
the University of Melbourne, Australia. He is cur-
rently working toward the Ph.D. degree in electrical
engineering at the same university.
His research interests include optical network ar-
chitectures and wireless communications.
Robert W. A. Ayre received the B.Sc. degree of
in electronic engineering from George Washington
University, Washington, DC, in 1967, and the
B.E. and M.Eng.Sc. degrees from Monash Uni-
versity, Melbourne, Australia, in 1970 and 1972,
respectively.
In 1972, he joined the Research Laboratories of
Telstra Corporation, working in a number of roles pri-
marily in the areas of optical transmission for core
and access networks, and in broadband networking.
In 2007, he joined the ARC Special Centre for Ultra-
Broadband Networks (CUBIN) at the University of Melbourne, continuing work
on networking and high-speed optical technologies.
Kerry Hinton was born in Adelaide, Australia, in
1955. He received the B.Eng. (hons), B.S. (hons.),
and M.S. degrees in mathematical sciences from the
University of Adelaide, Australia, in 1978, 1980, and
1982, respectively. He received the Ph.D. degree in
theoretical physics from the University of Newcastle
Upon Tyne, U.K., and the Diploma in industrial re-
lations from the Newcastle Upon Tyne Polytechnic,
U.K., in 1984.
In 1984, Dr. Hinton joined Telstra Research Lab-
oratories (TRL), Victoria, Australia, and worked on
analytical and numerical modeling of optical systems and components. His work
has focused optical communications devices and architectures, physical layer is-
sues for Automatically Switched Optical Networks (ASONs) and monitoring in
all-optical networks. Dr. Hinton was also a laser safety expert within Telstra.
In 2006, Dr. Hinton joined the ARC Special Centre for Ultra-Broadband Infor-
mation Networks, Australia, at the University of Melbourne, Australia, where
he is undertaking research into the energy efficiency of the Internet and optical
communications technologies.
2403
Wayne V. Sorin (S’78–M’80–SM’98–F’01) re-
ceived his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from
Stanford University in 1986.
He then spent over 14 years as a scientist in
the area of fiber optics at Hewlett-Packard/Agilent
Laboratories. In the year 2000 he joined the start-up
company Novera Optics where he worked in the area
of acousto-optic interactions within optical fibres
and then on WDM passive optical networks. Later
he joined the University of Melbourne as a Senior
Research Fellow. He is an inventor on 78 US patents
and an author on over 65 journal and conference papers. He was a contributing
author for the textbook Fiber Optic Test and Measurement (Prentice Hall, 1997)
and has spent 4 years on the part-time faculty of San Jose State University.
Dr. Sorin has been an Associate Editor for the IEEE PHOTONICS
TECHNOLOGY LETTERS and has served a three-year term on the Board of Gov-
ernors for the IEEE Photonics Society, formerly the Lasers and Electro-Optics
Society (LEOS). He was also the General Co-Chair for OFC’2002 (Optical
Fiber Communications conference).
Rodney S. Tucker (M’76–SM’81–F’89) received
the B.E. and the Ph.D. degrees from the University
of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia, in 1969 and
1975, respectively.
He is a Laureate Professor at the University
of Melbourne and Director of the ARC Special
Research Centre for Ultra-Broadband Information
Networks. He has held positions at the University of
Queensland, the University of California, Berkeley,
Cornell University, Plessey Research, AT&T Bell
Laboratories, Hewlett Packard Laboratories, and
Agilent Technologies.
Prof. Tucker is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and a Fellow
of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering He was
awarded the Institution of Engineers Australia Sargent Medal in 1995 for contri-
butions to Electrical Engineering, and was named IEEE Lasers and Electro-Op-
tics Society Distinguished Lecturer for the year 1995–1996. In 1997, he received
the Australia Prize for his contributions to telecommunications, and in 2007 he
was awarded the IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society Aron Kressel Award.