Integration of Hybrid Passive Optical Networks (PON) with Radio over Fiber (RoF)

A cost effective, robust, and high capacity access network necessitated to meet the mounting customer demands for bandwidth-desirous services. A remarkable evolution of access networks is observed both in wired and wireless, predominantly driven by ever-changing bandwidth requirements. A wireless connection releases the end user from the restrictions of a physical link to a network that results in mobility, flexibleness, and ease of use. Whereas, optical networks offer immense amount of bandwidth that appease the most bandwidth voracious customers compared to bandwidth limited wireless networks. The integration of wired and wireless domains in the access landscape that presents a technical analysis of optical architectures suitable to support radio over fiber (RoF) is the objective of this chapter. Investigate the main trends that drive the merger of fiber and wireless technologies in access networks. Moreover, study the primary terms and the particular transmission features of integrated fiber-radio links to form a well-defined classification of hybrid systems and techniques. This work also recognizes the major problems for realization of RoF systems and examines the limitation, advantages, and diversity of integrated RoF-PON technology

Regulation of NGN: Structural Separation, Access Regulation, or No Regulation at All?

Since the introduction of Next Generation Networks (NGNs) by telecommunication network operators, national regulators have begun to adapt their access regulation regimes to the new technological conditions. The regulatory reactions gravitate towards three distinct regulatory trajectories: unregulated competition, access regulation, and structural separation. We first analyze the extent of market power in access Networks in NGNs from a technological perspective. Second, we use case studies to identify patterns between technological and market conditions and regulators' reactions in selected countries. We find that market power in the access network is likely to prevail. Regulatory reactions differ with the extent of infrastructure competition and the regulators position in the trade-off between promoting investment and protecting competition.Next Generation Network, deregulation, access regulation, structural separation

Regulation of NGN: Structural Separation, Access Regulation, or No Regulation at All?

Since the introduction of Next Generation Networks (NGNs) by telecommunication network operators, national regulators have begun to adapt their access regulation regimes to the new technological conditions. The regulatory reactions gravitate towards three distinct regulatory trajectories: unregulated competition, access regulation, and structural separation. We first analyze the extent of market power in access Networks in NGNs from a technological perspective. Second, we use case studies to identify patterns between technological and market conditions and regulators' reactions in selected countries. We find that market power in the access network is likely to prevail. Regulatory reactions differ with the extent of infrastructure competition and the regulators position in the trade-off between promoting investment and protecting competitionNext Generation Network, deregulation, access regulation, structural separation.

Alternative Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol (AMSTP) for Optical Ethernet Backbones

The availability and affordable cost of Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches has impacted the deployment of metropolitan area networks (MAN) and campus networks. This paper presents a new protocol, the alternative multiple spanning tree protocol (AMSTP), that uses multiple source based spanning trees for backbones using Ethernet switches. It provides minimum paths and more efficient usage of optical backbone infrastructure than currently proposed protocols such as resilient packet ring and rapid spanning tree. The protocol exhibits features similar to MAC routing protocols like Link State Over MAC (LSOM) such as optimum path and effective infrastructure usage, without requiring MAC routing due to the use of the spanning tree protocol paradigm. AMSTP is not restricted to specific topologies such as ring or tree, but performs efficiently in arbitrary topologies. Among the application areas are optical backbones of campus and MANs.Publicad

Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers and mm-Wave Wireless Links for Converged Access Networks

Future access networks are converged optical-wireless networks, where fixed-line and wireless services share the same infrastructure. In this book, semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOA) and mm-wave wireless links are investigated, and their use in converged access networks is explored: SOAs compensate losses in the network, and thereby extend the network reach. Millimeter-wave wireless links substitute fiber links when cabling is not economical

Software Defined Applications in Cellular and Optical Networks

abstract: Small wireless cells have the potential to overcome bottlenecks in wireless access through the sharing of spectrum resources. A novel access backhaul network architecture based on a Smart Gateway (Sm-GW) between the small cell base stations, e.g., LTE eNBs, and the conventional backhaul gateways, e.g., LTE Servicing/Packet Gateways (S/P-GWs) has been introduced to address the bottleneck. The Sm-GW flexibly schedules uplink transmissions for the eNBs. Based on software defined networking (SDN) a management mechanism that allows multiple operator to flexibly inter-operate via multiple Sm-GWs with a multitude of small cells has been proposed. This dissertation also comprehensively survey the studies that examine the SDN paradigm in optical networks. Along with the PHY functional split improvements, the performance of Distributed Converged Cable Access Platform (DCCAP) in the cable architectures especially for the Remote-PHY and Remote-MACPHY nodes has been evaluated. In the PHY functional split, in addition to the re-use of infrastructure with a common FFT module for multiple technologies, a novel cross functional split interaction to cache the repetitive QAM symbols across time at the remote node to reduce the transmission rate requirement of the fronthaul link has been proposed.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Electrical Engineering 201

An Innovative RAN Architecture for Emerging Heterogeneous Networks: The Road to the 5G Era

The global demand for mobile-broadband data services has experienced phenomenal growth over the last few years, driven by the rapid proliferation of smart devices such as smartphones and tablets. This growth is expected to continue unabated as mobile data traffic is predicted to grow anywhere from 20 to 50 times over the next 5 years. Exacerbating the problem is that such unprecedented surge in smartphones usage, which is characterized by frequent short on/off connections and mobility, generates heavy signaling traffic load in the network signaling storms . This consumes a disproportion amount of network resources, compromising network throughput and efficiency, and in extreme cases can cause the Third-Generation (3G) or 4G (long-term evolution (LTE) and LTE-Advanced (LTE-A)) cellular networks to crash. As the conventional approaches of improving the spectral efficiency and/or allocation additional spectrum are fast approaching their theoretical limits, there is a growing consensus that current 3G and 4G (LTE/LTE-A) cellular radio access technologies (RATs) won\u27t be able to meet the anticipated growth in mobile traffic demand. To address these challenges, the wireless industry and standardization bodies have initiated a roadmap for transition from 4G to 5G cellular technology with a key objective to increase capacity by 1000Ã? by 2020 . Even though the technology hasn\u27t been invented yet, the hype around 5G networks has begun to bubble. The emerging consensus is that 5G is not a single technology, but rather a synergistic collection of interworking technical innovations and solutions that collectively address the challenge of traffic growth. The core emerging ingredients that are widely considered the key enabling technologies to realize the envisioned 5G era, listed in the order of importance, are: 1) Heterogeneous networks (HetNets); 2) flexible backhauling; 3) efficient traffic offload techniques; and 4) Self Organizing Networks (SONs). The anticipated solutions delivered by efficient interworking/ integration of these enabling technologies are not simply about throwing more resources and /or spectrum at the challenge. The envisioned solution, however, requires radically different cellular RAN and mobile core architectures that efficiently and cost-effectively deploy and manage radio resources as well as offload mobile traffic from the overloaded core network. The main objective of this thesis is to address the key techno-economics challenges facing the transition from current Fourth-Generation (4G) cellular technology to the 5G era in the context of proposing a novel high-risk revolutionary direction to the design and implementation of the envisioned 5G cellular networks. The ultimate goal is to explore the potential and viability of cost-effectively implementing the 1000x capacity challenge while continuing to provide adequate mobile broadband experience to users. Specifically, this work proposes and devises a novel PON-based HetNet mobile backhaul RAN architecture that: 1) holistically addresses the key techno-economics hurdles facing the implementation of the envisioned 5G cellular technology, specifically, the backhauling and signaling challenges; and 2) enables, for the first time to the best of our knowledge, the support of efficient ground-breaking mobile data and signaling offload techniques, which significantly enhance the performance of both the HetNet-based RAN and LTE-A\u27s core network (Evolved Packet Core (EPC) per 3GPP standard), ensure that core network equipment is used more productively, and moderate the evolving 5G\u27s signaling growth and optimize its impact. To address the backhauling challenge, we propose a cost-effective fiber-based small cell backhaul infrastructure, which leverages existing fibered and powered facilities associated with a PON-based fiber-to-the-Node/Home (FTTN/FTTH)) residential access network. Due to the sharing of existing valuable fiber assets, the proposed PON-based backhaul architecture, in which the small cells are collocated with existing FTTN remote terminals (optical network units (ONUs)), is much more economical than conventional point-to-point (PTP) fiber backhaul designs. A fully distributed ring-based EPON architecture is utilized here as the fiber-based HetNet backhaul. The techno-economics merits of utilizing the proposed PON-based FTTx access HetNet RAN architecture versus that of traditional 4G LTE-A\u27s RAN will be thoroughly examined and quantified. Specifically, we quantify the techno-economics merits of the proposed PON-based HetNet backhaul by comparing its performance versus that of a conventional fiber-based PTP backhaul architecture as a benchmark. It is shown that the purposely selected ring-based PON architecture along with the supporting distributed control plane enable the proposed PON-based FTTx RAN architecture to support several key salient networking features that collectively significantly enhance the overall performance of both the HetNet-based RAN and 4G LTE-A\u27s core (EPC) compared to that of the typical fiber-based PTP backhaul architecture in terms of handoff capability, signaling overhead, overall network throughput and latency, and QoS support. It will also been shown that the proposed HetNet-based RAN architecture is not only capable of providing the typical macro-cell offloading gain (RAN gain) but also can provide ground-breaking EPC offloading gain. The simulation results indicate that the overall capacity of the proposed HetNet scales with the number of deployed small cells, thanks to LTE-A\u27s advanced interference management techniques. For example, if there are 10 deployed outdoor small cells for every macrocell in the network, then the overall capacity will be approximately 10-11x capacity gain over a macro-only network. To reach the 1000x capacity goal, numerous small cells including 3G, 4G, and WiFi (femtos, picos, metros, relays, remote radio heads, distributed antenna systems) need to be deployed indoors and outdoors, at all possible venues (residences and enterprises)