Cyclic Polling-Based Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation for Differentiated Classes of Service in Ethernet Passive Optical Networks

Ethernet passive optical networks (EPONs) are an emerging access network technology that provides a low-cost method of deploying optical access lines between a carrier's central office and customer sites. Dynamic bandwidth allocation (DBA) provides statistical multiplexing between the optical network units for efficient upstream channel utilization. To support dynamic bandwidth distribution, a cyclic polling-based DBA algorithm for differentiated classes of service in EPONs is proposed. It is shown that an interleaved polling scheme severely decreases downstream channel capacity for user traffic when the upstream network load is low. To obtain realistic simulation results, synthetic traffic that exhibits the properties of self-similarity and long-range dependence is used. Network performance under various loads is analyzed. Specifically, frame delays for different classes of traffic are considered.