HYDRA: A Scalable Ultra Long Reach/High Capacity Access Network Architecture Featuring Lower Cost and Power Consumption

This paper proposes HYbriD long-Reach fiber Access network (HYDRA), a novel network architecture that overcomes many limitations of the current WDM/TDM PON approaches leading to significantly improved cost and power consumption figures. The key concept is the introduction of an active remote node that interfaces to end-users by means of the lowest cost/power consumption technology (short-range xPON, wireless, etc.) while on the core network side it employs adaptive ultra-long reach links to bypass the metropolitan area network. The scheme leads to a higher degree of node consolidation and access-core integration. We demonstrate that HYDRA can achieve very high performance based on mature component technologies ensuring very low cost end-user terminals, reduced complexity, and high scalability.