When small cell networks meet FiWi or like deserts miss the rain

While emerging smart power grids certainly provide exciting opportunities for converged fiber-wireless (FiWi) access networks, an arguably even more interesting new research avenue is the imminent unification of coverage-centric mobile networks and capacity-centric FiWi broadband access networks based on low-cost, simple data-centric Ethernet technologies in response to the explosion of mobile data traffic worldwide. In this paper, we first touch on the collaborative implementation of FiWi infrastructures that can be shared for both broadband access and smart grid communications by exploiting “free” renewable energy from sustainable positive energy buildings. We then present our envisioned FiWi enhanced small cell network architecture and elaborate on the benefits of exploiting high-speed WiFi offloading and NG-PON based fiber backhaul sharing.We outline open research challenges and report on our recent progress on the design of low-latency NG-PON polling and wireless M2M sensor reliability techniques for FiWi based mobile backhaul and smart grid communications infrastructures.