MAC protocol of a next-generation MAN architecture based on WDM and all-optical packet switching

As media converge to the Internet, MANs will face new demands not only in terms of bandwidth, but also in terms of services. We describe a next generation MAN architecture that has been designed within Dutch project Flamingo. Based on all-optical packet switching, this architecture supports one-to-one, one-to-many and many-to-one communications in the optical domain. Specifically, we focus on the MAC layer of the network. We describe the access and fairness protocols and explain how the all-optical nature of the architecture affects the design of these protocols. We also discuss some performance results that have been obtained via simulation.