This operational practice covers techniques for measuring the energy consumption of outside plant (OSP)
equipment, including power supplies, fiber optic nodes, RF amplifiers and other active electronic devices
in the outside plant. Methods apply to modern equipment with built-in metering and to un-metered legacy
equipment, and some of the latter may be intrusive and service impacting.This operational practice is to help cable operators determine the actual energy consumption of current
and newer OSP devices as they are deployed in the field in order to 1) develop energy monitoring and
management practices to improve energy efficiency in the OSP, and 2) to understand where
improvements in next generation access network equipment are needed to achieve further improvements
in energy efficiency.ANSI/SCTE 211 2015 [3] describes energy metrics for access networks, and ANSI/SCTE 212 2015 [2]
describes an overall framework for performing energy audits and establishing baseline energy
consumption in cable access networks. However, even with the ANSI/SCTE 212 2015 [2] framework,
portions of cable networks do not easily lend themselves to exact measurement and monitoring of energy
consumption due to the lack throughout the network of certified utility metering and/or modern
monitoring solutions built into the power supplies. This document thus provides specific operational
practices in support of the ANSI/SCTE 212 2015 [2] standard for defining how cable operators can audit
power consumption and accurately establish an energy baseline in access networks as they currently exist.
This document is limited to the outside plant equipment and excludes any customer powered equipment.
Inside plant, i.e. equipment located in critical facilities at the network edge, should be covered in a
separate operational practice document.