{"id":24969,"date":"2020-11-26T08:38:16","date_gmt":"2020-11-26T08:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/?p=24969"},"modified":"2020-11-26T10:40:53","modified_gmt":"2020-11-26T10:40:53","slug":"study-finds-full-fibre-is-the-most-energy-efficient-broadband","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/index.php\/2020\/11\/study-finds-full-fibre-is-the-most-energy-efficient-broadband.html","title":{"rendered":"Study Finds Full Fibre is the Most Energy Efficient Broadband"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new study from the Prysmian Group, which was commissioned by cable manufacturer Europacable<\/a>, has found that Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP<\/a>) based broadband ISP networks are the most energy efficient of consumer fixed line technologies, compared with FTTC<\/a> (VDSL2<\/a>) and Hybrid Fibre Coax (DOCSIS<\/a> 3 networks, like Virgin Media<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The research<\/a><\/strong> attempted to evaluate the overall energy consumption for each of the three access technologies at a ubiquitous rollout, using a model that was based on 6 real regions in Germany (i.e. representing a typical rural or urban settlement structure). The general target was to provide a minimum of 50Mbps on every connection within this region (i.e. 100% take-up) and it also factored in the impact of consumer routers.<\/p>\n

NOTE:<\/strong> The study looked at two FTTP<\/a>\/H methods – Point-to-Point and Gigabit Passive Optical Networks (GPON). Openreach<\/a> use GPON, while others (e.g. B4RN<\/a>) prefer PtP.<\/div>\n

As the tables below show, the access technologies differ considerably in the number of required active network elements and locations. The HFC network with its 794 fibre nodes and 12 CMTS needs the most active network elements. Followed by VDSL2<\/a> Vectoring with 538 active street cabinets (DSLAMs) and six central offices. FTTH<\/a> has with its 36 Points of Presence (PoPs) by far the lowest amount of active network elements in different locations.<\/p>\n

Overall, the power consumption of the HFC and VDSL2<\/a> access networks came out as 1.8 to 2.2 times the power of FTTP<\/a> (PtP) and up to approximately 7.5 times more than the FTTP (GPON) access network. Expressed in figures, the HFC access network requires 114kW, the VDSL2 access network 142kW, the FTTP (PtP) network 64kW and the FTTP (GPON) access network 19kW.<\/p>\n

Comparison of the number of active network elements and the power consumption of the examined access technologies<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"power_consumption_broadband_hardware_and_total\"<\/p>\n

For the customer premises equipment, it is somewhat different. Here the HFC network is placed last with 456kW, the FTTP networks second with 341kW and the VDSL2 network is first with 253kW. The reason is because an additional user device (house amplifier or ONT) is used for the HFC and the FTTP networks. Especially for the FTTP networks, the energy consumption could be reduced by optimizing the customer premises equipment.<\/p>\n

Therefore, the total power consumption of access network and customer premises equipment differs not much between the VDSL2 and the FTTP (PtP) network – 396kW and 406kW respectively. The lowest power consumption was the FTTP (GPON) network with 360kW, while the HFC network had a far bigger power consumption of 569kW.<\/p>\n

Annual energy consumption and CO2 emission<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"power_consumption_broadband-_access_networks\"<\/p>\n

At this point it’s worth highlighting that full fibre networks can still consume a fair bit of power when they’re running at full pelt, yet at any given moment most consumers will only ever be using significantly less than the maximum capacity of their line (this is a facet of package choice and the fact that the vast majority of online services simply can’t make use of all that speed). Internet connections also tend to sit fairly idle for much of the day.<\/p>\n

However, today’s report shows that when you compare energy usage at a specific level of speed (50Mbps), across modern broadband technologies in a real-world style setting, then generally it’s FTTP (particularly GPON) that is the most efficient and this gap increases as the performance grows. None of this will come as much of a surprise to those familiar with how it works, but it’s still an interesting piece of research. Oh and there’s a video..<\/p>\n