Next Generation Optical Access Networks: from TDM to WDM

Postprint (author’s final draft

Next Generation Optical Access Networks: from TDM to WDM

Postprint (author’s final draft

Optimizing resource allocation in next-generation optical access networks

To meet rapidly increasing traffic demands caused by the popularization of Internet and the spouting of bandwidth-demanding applications, Passive Optical Networks (PONs) exploit the potential capacities of optical fibers, and are becoming promising future-proof access network technologies. On the other hand, for a broader coverage area and higher data rate, integrated optical and wireless access is becoming a future trend for wireless access. This thesis investigates three next-generation access networks: Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) PONs, Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) PONs, and WDM Radio-Over-Fiber (RoF) Picocellular networks. To address resource allocation problems in these three networks, this thesis first investigates respective characteristics of these networks, and then presents solutions to address respective challenging problems in these networks. In particular, three main problems are addressed: arbitrating time allocation among different applications to guarantee user quality of experience (QoE) in TDM PONs, scheduling wavelengths optimally in WDM PONs, and jointly allocating fiber and radio resources in WDM RoF Picocellular networks. In-depth theoretical analysis and extensive simulations have been performed in evaluating and demonstrating the performances of the proposed schemes

Resource management research in ethernet passive optical networks

The last decades, we have witnessed different phenomenology in the telecommunications sector. One of them is the widespread use of the Internet, which has brought a sharp increase in traffic, forcing suppliers to continuously expand the capacity of networks. In the near future, Internet will be composed of long-range highspeed optical networks; a number of wireless networks at the edge; and, in between, several access technologies. Today one of the main problems of the Internet is the bottleneck in the access segment. To address this issue the Passive Optical Networks (PONs) are very likely to succeed, due to their simplicity, low-cost, and increased bandwidth. A PON is made up of fiber optic cabling and passive splitters and couplers that distribute an optical signal to connectors that terminate each fiber segment. Among the different PON technologies, the Ethernet-PON (EPON) is a great alternative to satisfy operator and user needs, due to its cost, flexibility and interoperability with other technologies. One of the most interesting challenges in such technologies relates to the scheduling and allocation of resources in the upstream (shared) channel, i.e., the resource management. The aim of this thesis is to study and evaluate current contributions and propose new efficient solutions to address the resource management issues mainly in EPON. Key issues in this context are future end-user needs, quality of service (QoS) support, energy-saving and optimized service provisioning for real-time and elastic flows. This thesis also identifies research opportunities, issue recommendations and proposes novel mechanisms associated with access networks based on optical fiber technologies.Postprint (published version

Cost and energy efficient operation of converged, reconfigurable optical wireless networks

This paper presents a converged fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) based access network architecture featuring wireless services. In order to fulfill the bandwidth demands from end users, a dynamic architecture is proposed with co-existence of LTE, WiMax and UWB technologies. Hybrid wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) and a time division multiplexing (TDM) based optical access network offer reconfigurable provision. This enhances the ability to allocate different wavelengths to different optical networking units (ONUs) on demand. In addition, two different channel routing modules (CRMs) are introduced in order to address the cost effectiveness and energy efficiency issues of the proposed network. Take-up rate adaptive-mode operation and traffic-adaptive power management are utilized to optimize the benefits of low investment cost with energy efficiency. Up to 26% power consumption reduction is achieved at the time of minimum traffic conditions while 10% consumption is achieved at the time of maximum traffic conditions. Besides, 23% energy saving can be achieved compared to conventional systems in fully operated stage

Wavelength reconfigurability for next generation optical access networks

Next generation optical access networks should not only increase the capacity but also be able to redistribute the capacity on the fly in order to manage larger variations in traffic patterns. Wavelength reconfigurability is the instrument to enable such capability of network-wide bandwidth redistribution since it allows dynamic sharing of both wavelengths and timeslots in WDM-TDM optical access networks. However, reconfigurability typically requires tunable lasers and tunable filters at the user side, resulting in cost-prohibitive optical network units (ONU). In this dissertation, I propose a novel concept named cyclic-linked flexibility to address the cost-prohibitive problem. By using the cyclic-linked flexibility, the ONU needs to switch only within a subset of two pre-planned wavelengths, however, the cyclic-linked structure of wavelengths allows free bandwidth to be shifted to any wavelength by a rearrangement process. Rearrangement algorithm are developed to demonstrate that the cyclic-linked flexibility performs close to the fully flexible network in terms of blocking probability, packet delay, and packet loss. Furthermore, the evaluation shows that the rearrangement process has a minimum impact to in-service ONUs. To realize the cyclic-linked flexibility, a family of four physical architectures is proposed. PRO-Access architecture is suitable for new deployments and disruptive upgrades in which the network reach is not longer than 20 km. WCL-Access architecture is suitable for metro-access merger with the reach up to 100 km. PSB-Access architecture is suitable to implement directly on power-splitter-based PON deployments, which allows coexistence with current technologies. The cyclically-linked protection architecture can be used with current and future PON standards when network protection is required