IPACT a dynamic protocol for an Ethernet PON (EPON)

TLDR

Ethernet‑based passive optical networks using polling provide dynamic bandwidth, single‑wavelength operation, fractional capacity provisioning, and easy user addition. The study investigates design issues in PON access networks and proposes the IPACT interleaved polling algorithm to enable dynamic bandwidth distribution. The authors introduce an in‑band signaling scheme for single‑wavelength data and control, generate self‑similar synthetic traffic, and evaluate network performance across varying loads.

Abstract

We investigate design issues for access networks based on passive optical network technology. A PON based on polling, with data encapsulated in Ethernet frames, possesses many desirable qualities, such as dynamic bandwidth distribution, use of a single downstream and a single upstream wavelength, ability to provision a fractional wavelength capacity to each user, and ease of adding a new user. To support dynamic bandwidth distribution, we propose an interleaved polling algorithm called IPACT. We also suggest a scheme for in-band signaling that allows using a single wavelength for both downstream data and control message transmission. To obtain realistic simulation results, we generated synthetic traffic that exhibits the properties of self-similarity and long-range dependence. We then analyzed the network performance under varying offered loads.