Techno-economics and performance of convergent radio and fibre architectures

This paper presents a techno-economic comparison between classical passive optical networking (PON) and innovative convergent radio and fibre architectures, based on intermediate aggregation at the remote base station (RBS) of both, fixed and mobile subscribers. By aggregating users at an active remote node (ARN) co-located at the RBS, which offers high-speed switching and statistical-multiplexing features for maximal exploitation of available network resources, the cost per bit of access networks is greatly reduced. Such techno-economic advantage is especially relevant at the present, in order to offer ultra-high-speed access for fixed users (> 1 Gbps) and connectivity at the RBS for 4G and beyond. In addition, the low-energy of the ARN and its low-cost design offer an environmentally sustainable technology solution, whilst acting as a critical enabler for new smart services, e-society initiatives, and intelligent lifestyle management. Finally, such ARN-based convergent architectures offer straight-forward Open Access control and management systems, so as to allow flexible infrastructure sharing and further reductions in CAPEX and OPEX, which are essential for the deployment of converged next-generation access networks for fixed and mobile subscribers. The work also includes performance studies to demonstrate that the proposed convergent radio and fibre architecture offers a realistic upgrade path to existing PON networks. © 2014 IEEE.