Energy-efficient cascaded bit-interleaving protocol for integrated optical access/in-building networks

This paper proposes and experimentally evaluates the Cascaded Bit-interleaving architecture and protocol, an energy-efficient solution that aims to reduce the power consumption of integrated optical access/in-building networks, while offering high-speed Internet service to end-users. In the new architecture, optical-electrical-optical (OED) regeneration is employed at the interface between the access and in-building networks, and downstream frames are generated at the central office using the two-stage bit-interleaving scheme. The users' network nodes only process the data destined for them without any buffering at a lower clock rate than the aggregate PON rate, thereby significantly reducing their energy consumption. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate the proof of concept and show that the power consumption of the access/in-building network can be significantly reduced when the proposed cascaded bit-interleaving protocol is employed.