Gate: greening at the edges

Dramatic data traffic growth, especially in wireless data, is driving a significant surge in energy consumption in the last mile access of the telecommunications infrastructure. The growing energy consumption not only escalates operators' operational expenditures, but also leads to a significant rise in carbon footprints. Therefore, enhancing the energy efficiency of broadband access networks is becoming a necessity to bolster social, environmental, and economic sustainability. This article provides an overview on the design and optimization of energy-efficient broadband access networks, analyzes the energy-efficient design of passive optical networks, discusses the enabling technologies for next generation broadband wireless access networks, and elicits emerging technologies for enhancing the energy efficiency of the last mile access of the network infrastructure.