Broadband speeds are increasing. Fibre To The Home is being rolled out across the western world. But traditional telecoms network is always on consuming power constantly. But with rapidly increasing bandwidth demands and despite evolving more efficient kit that could still mean rapidly increasing power demand.

Thankfully a power game changer has arrived. Bit-Interleaved Passive Optical Network kit. Effectively it’s only one when required and only on by the amount of data to be shifted up to it maximum. Already systems supporting up to 10Gigabits are available with immienently 40G.

Traditional 10G bandwidth even in sleep mode would consume 2.5W but Bi-PON only used 60 milliwatts.  Overall they produce a saving of 30% now with further efficiencies expected. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. For every Watt used powering kit typically telecoms needs another Watt+ to cool and remove heat. It also uses significant effort to ensure eight hours battery bakc-uo and stand-by generators. And all these power supporting kits and distribution boards take space which can be drastically cut back. So any power savings are multiplied through the operational costs of running networks. 

The first field trials of this kit are plannd by France Telecom – Orange.