Quality of protection schemes with extended flexibility for improved energy efficiency in transport networks

In this paper we evaluate the potential of Quality of Protection (QoP) schemes to improve the energy efficiency in optical transport networks. Different levels of flexibility, both in the digital and optical domains, are considered for simulations over a nation-wide reference network model. Increasing power savings are achieved as long as the flexibility levels become higher, demonstrating the benefits of QoP deployments to accomplish power consumption reduction.