The role of Wireless Sensor Networks for green Gigabit access networks

Actual home networks have become an heterogeneous environment in terms of technologies used and do not take into account any intelligent energy saving mechanism. In this paper we propose an energy saving strategy by integrating a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) with a high speed, hybrid home network. The main objective is to demonstrate that a WSN can act as a dependable control plane, where low data rate control packets can flow even when the high speed home network is shut down. While the home network nodes or some of each node’s network technologies can be deactivate, the WSN is always on and, due to the low data rate required to properly work, it consumes a very limited quantity of energy. This mutual interaction between the high speed home network and the WSN allows at the same time to achieve the convergence of heterogeneous communication technologies in the home environment and leads to a substantial reduction of the energy consumptions. Simulation results show that this strategy is effective in a multitude of scenarios and provides a tangible economic benefit.