POWERING THE FIBER LOOP OPTICALLY - A COST-ANALYSIS

As fiber is deployed in the local loop, telecommunications powering be comes a key concern. Recent successes in transporting optical power ne ar the 1-W level via optical fiber suggest that it may be possible to operate conventional telephone station sets using electricity derived photovoltaically from light in a fiber. In this paper, we investigate the constraints on optical powering in fiber-in-the-loop (FITL) applic ations. We assess its applicability for FITL in terms of end-to-end ef ficiency, loop length, and system cost. To make this assessment, we lo ok at several different optical-powering system architectures and comp onents vis-a-vis their cost-versus-delivered-power capability. We also discuss related issues such as safety and reliability. We believe tha t this is the first comprehensive end-to-end assessment of optical pow ering from a cost point of view.