Energy efficiency of optical grooming of QAM optical transmission channels

Analysis of the energy use for optical grooming of quadrature amplitude modulated signals in optical transmission systems is used to determine the potential efficiency benefits. An energy model is developed for both optical and electronic grooming and used to study the relative efficiency for three different network scenarios. The energy efficiency is evaluated considering both coherent and direct detection transceivers including power management strategies. Results indicate efficiency improvements up to an order of magnitude may be possible for 100 GBaud rates and 25-30 GBaud is a critical point at which optical grooming becomes the more efficient approach. These results are further shown to apply for the case of projected efficiency improvements in the underlying device technologies.