Synergetic Node of Edge Computing and Hybrid Fibre-Wireless (FiWi) Access Networks for IoT

The fast-evolving Internet of Things (IoT) requires reliable and flexible networks and low-latency computing to connect billions or even trillions of edge devices and deal with the vast amount of data generated by them at high speed. This situation poised to induce a significant change to the current network architecture and cloud computing. This paper proposes a new design of fiber-wireless (FiWi) node which integrated with computing, storage for IoT, and virtualization is introduced to manage the networking and computing resources. Analytical results demonstrate that its effectiveness on switching reaches the level of hardware switches and can provide low-latency cloud service for IoT applications based on low-cost and low-power computing devices. Additionally, a use case using the FiWi access networks as a sensor is given to show the advantages of the FiWi ECN.