2011/02/17 by Philippe Robert, James W. Roberts, Robert, Philippe +1
Computer Science · Engineering · #Advanced Optical Network Technologies #Advanced Photonic Communication Systems #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Network Traffic and Congestion Control #Networking and Internet Architecture (cs.NI)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1102.3538
openalex publication_date 2011/02/17 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The paper introduces an original MAC protocol for a passive optical metropolitan area network using time-domain wavelength interleaved networking (TWIN)% as proposed recently by Bell Labs . Optical channels are shared under the distributed control of destinations using a packet-based polling algorithm. This MAC is inspired more by EPON dynamic bandwidth allocation than the slotted, GPON-like access control generally envisaged for TWIN. Management of source-destination traffic streams is flow-aware with the size of allocated time slices being proportional to the number of active flows. This emulates a network-wide, distributed fair queuing scheduler, bringing the well-known implicit service differentiation and robustness advantages of this mechanism to the metro area network. The paper presents a comprehensive performance evaluation based on analytical modelling supported by simulations. The proposed MAC is shown to have excellent performance in terms of both traffic capacity and packet latency.