Energy-efficiency in telecommunications networks: Link-by-link versus end-to-end grooming

The large share of energy consumption in telecommunication networks is expected to shift from access networks to core networks. Estimating the power consumption of core networks is not easy, as they vary a lot in size and topology. Using an exemplary but realistic core network, we estimate its power consumption for both a link-by-link grooming and an optical end-to-end grooming scenario. We show that optical end-to-end grooming consumes about half the power of the alternative scenario.