Evaluation of Optical Wireless Technologies in Home Networking: An Analytical Hierarchy Process Approach

Home networks (HNs) will play a crucial role in achieving broadband service delivery and enabling the future Internet. Optical wireless (OW) is a promising technology for realizing this vision. This paper presents the main results of a roadmapping effort undertaken within the project ICT-OMEGA concerning the potential of OW HNs. Using the framework of the analytic hierarchy process, five different optical home networking scenarios are identified and ranked. Within this framework, the importance of several economic, social and performance criteria is also evaluated. The obtained results are justified taking into account the technical particularities of each architecture. A sensitivity analysis is also performed to further elaborate on the results.