SixGman: An Open-Source Planner for Fixed 6G Hierarchical Optical Access-Core Networks

TL;DR

SixGman is an open-source optical network planning tool that evaluates hierarchical architectures, demonstrating cost and energy savings through HL3 bypassing in a realistic metro-urban topology.

Contribution

The paper presents SixGman, a modular, open-source framework for simulating and analyzing hierarchical 6G optical access-core networks with detailed economic and energy assessments.

Findings

HL3 bypassing improves traffic distribution and resource utilization.

Reduces end-to-end latency and optical/electrical resource usage.

Achieves up to 17.5% reduction in TCO and 29.1% in energy consumption.

Abstract

This paper introduces SixGman, an open-source optical network planning tool for evaluating access-metro-core aggregation network architectures. The framework integrates traffic generation, dual-homed routing, Quality of Transmission (QoT) estimation, spectrum and fiber assignment, techno-economic analysis, energy consumption evaluation, and visualization capabilities. Its modular design, based on standardized interfaces and clearly defined functions, enables flexible, transparent, and reproducible network simulations. SixGman is applied to the Telef\'onica MAN157 metro-urban topology, composed of 157 optical nodes, 220 links, and four hierarchical layers (HL1-HL4), to compare a conventional full hierarchical architecture with an HL3-bypassed architecture where electrical aggregation at HL3 nodes is removed. The analysis includes traffic distribution, IP router utilization, link congestion, latency, Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), and energy consumption. Results show that HL3 bypassing improves traffic distribution, reduces optical and electrical resource usage, lowers end-to-end latency, and decreases both capital and operational expenditures. Compared to the full hierarchical architecture, the HL3-bypassed scenario achieves reductions of up to 17.5% in TCO and 29.1% in cumulative energy consumption. These results demonstrate the potential of SixGman as a flexible planning platform for cost- and energy-efficient optical network design.