Comms giants unite to deliver more energy-efficient fibre networks

As the broadband industry aims to meet rising demand for high-speed connectivity, leading to the necessity of fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) networks operating sustainably with a commensurate surge in power usage, the Broadband Forum has embarked on a project to support fibre service providers in their pursuit of more energy-efficient networks that can unlock significant power savings.

Building on ITU-T’s recommendations and guidelines on power saving in fibre equipment, the project – Energy Power Saving Requirements, Test Plan and Data Model from the Broadband Forum’s Fibre Access Network (FAN) Work Area – is being driven by BT Group, Orange, Calix, Futurewei, Huawei and Nokia, and will see a number of Broadband Forum’s standards and specifications incorporate new energy-saving requirements for the industry to adhere to and seek to lower energy consumption when accessing the internet.

The project will build on the ITU-T Supplement 45, G series, which published recommendations and guidelines on power saving in passive optical networks (PON) equipment, and will seek to publish a specification in summer 2025 encouraging the development of technologies that satisfy the power-saving requirements, test plan and data model it sets out.

“Energy efficiency in fixed broadband equipment is essential for reducing power costs and CO₂ emissions for operators and their customers,” said Hugues Le Bras, network engineer in fixed access networks at Orange and editor of the project. “To achieve this, the new project outlines power-saving requirements, power measurement monitoring and testing methods that are needed to unlock greater energy efficiency. We need service providers to commit to lower energy consumption, equipment and component vendors to comply with these targets, and test labs to test the interoperability and functionality of protocol-specific power-saving methodologies once agreed on.”

By incorporating these power-saving recommendations into our existing Broadband Forum specifications, service providers have the blueprint to tackle the issue head-on when it comes to lowering their carbon footprints

Marta Seda, principal solutions architect and system engineer at Calix and Broadband Forum’s FAN Work Area director, added: “The fibre industry continues to look at methods to become more energy-efficient, and by incorporating these power-saving recommendations into our existing Broadband Forum specifications, service providers have the blueprint to tackle the issue head-on when it comes to lowering their carbon footprints.”

A key focus will be the development of power-saving functionality of optical network units (ONUs) and optical line terminals (OLTs). The driver for this is that even though FTTH networks offer improved energy efficiency compared with legacy copper networks, ONUs still typically consume a substantial amount of power, when active and even when idle, which can cause power leakages.

Broadband Forum emphasised that ONU power shedding, which is the reduction of power for non-essential functions while ensuring an operational optical link, and watchful sleep modes, which ensures only the relevant hardware remains on, will be included in the scope of work.