Point-to-Multipoint Coherent Optics for Re-thinking the Optical Transport: Case Study in 5G Optical Metro Networks

Point-to-multipoint (P2MP) coherent optics using digital subcarrier multiplexing have recently been proposed as a promising new technology to potentially reduce the costs and complexity of optical transport networks, particularly in metro aggregation scenarios. In this paper, we perform a case study on a realistic 5G metro reference network, mixing a mesh metro core and edge rings, comparing P2MP and point-to-point (P2P) transponders with varying relative costs. Results indicate that if the costs of commercial P2MP transponders are up to 50% higher than P2P transponders, P2MP optics can reduce the total transponder costs, in addition to offering other advantages such as flexibility and significantly reduced hardware.