QoS enabled broadband access through optical rings

Abstract

We describe an optical ring media access architecture, a media access (MAC) protocol, and a test bed implementation. The optical ring media access architecture is designed to facilitate high-speed broadband access for small business, residential, and mobile users. In our scheme, users can access a wide area network (WAN), such as the Internet, through a media access node (assumed to be a short distance away from the user). The transmission of data from the access node to the destination is done via an optical ring to a central office residing on the ring and from the central office via WAN to the destination, which may be hosted by a media access node on another optical ring. The MAC protocol is based on the earliest deadline first (EDF) scheduling to provide quality of service (QoS) for traffic flows on the ring. The test bed implementation consists of four media access nodes connected by an optical ring. Each node is implemented as a board which consists of an FPGA, an SRAM chip, optical interface modules, etc. Finally, we describe bandwidth and latency measurements showing differentiated performance for prioritized flows.