A novel decentralized Ethernet passive optical network architecture

This work proposes a novel fully distributed Ethernet over star coupler-based PON architecture. The architecture uses a collision-free DBA scheme in which the OLT is excluded from the implementation of the time slot assignment. To implement a distributed control plane, direct connectivity (communicability) between the ONUs should be in place without imposing any constraint on the PON topology. In addition to the added flexibility and reliability associated with a distributed architecture, the performance of the proposed decentralized Ethernet PON scheme and the associated bandwidth allocation algorithms are shown to be as efficient as their centralized counterparts.