A hybrid content ion-resolution scheme for an optical packet-switched network with self-similar IP traffic

We propose a novel optical-electrical hybrid contention-resolution scheme for optical packet-switched networks. This scheme exploits both electrical buffering at the ingress nodes and optical contention resolutions at the core nodes. It significantly improves the network's performance with a simple node architecture. By employing self-similar packet traffic with typical IP packet-size distribution, we demonstrate a packet-loss rate of less than 0.01 with average offered transmitter load up to 0.6 for a representative telecom network. Our results also show that the use of electrical buffering at the edge does not introduce any significant latency.