Transmission Impairments and Power Consumption in Optical Networks

Abstract

Abstract The physical layer in optical networks suffers from various transmission impairments due to the non-ideal passive and active devices used therein. For example, losses in various passive optical devices and fiber links, noise generated in optical receivers and amplifiers, dispersion and nonlinear phenomena in optical fibers, and crosstalk in optical switches can degrade the quality of the received signal at some destination nodes, thereby increasing the receiver BER beyond an acceptable limit. However, power consumption in various active devices across a network keeps increasing with the growth of network traffic and size, demanding power-aware designs of the network elements and protocols. Here, we examine the impact of various transmission impairments in optical networks, followed by possible impairment-aware designs for different networking segments. Finally, we present some power-aware design approaches for optical networks. (132 words)