Design and analysis of a frame-based dynamic bandwidth allocation scheme for fiber-wireless broadband access networks

The integration of Ethernet passive optical networks (EPONs) and broadband wireless access (BWA) networks, such as LTE and WiMAX, provides a promising solution for fixed mobile convergence architectures. The complementary features of these two network systems provide high bandwidth and mobility together with a low deployment cost. However, even though many hardware architectures have been proposed for integrated EPON/BWA networks, the problem of achieving an effective bandwidth division among the EPON and wireless traffic remains unresolved. Accordingly, the present study proposes a novel frame-based dynamic bandwidth allocation (FB-DBA) scheme to accommodate the different protocols of EPON and BWA networks, respectively, in an efficient manner. The proposed scheme adopts a framed approach, in which the time domains of the optical and wireless access networks are partitioned into contiguous frames of a fixed length. Within each frame, wireless traffic is transmitted in a pipeline fashion between the optical and wireless domains, which significantly reduces the delay of wireless traffic. Furthermore, sufficient network resources are provided to ensure the respective quality-of-service requirements of the EPON and wireless traffic. The performance of the proposed FB-DBA scheme is evaluated by means of a series of simulations based on an N-user M/G/1 queuing model. The numerical results confirm the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed scheme.