Entropy of traffic distribution and multihop lightwave network capacity under non-uniform traffic

Multihop lightwave networks enjoy increasing prominence as viable candidates for high-speed local, metropolitan, and wide-area networks. Of interest is the end-user capacity which may be afforded by a multihop lightwave network. For uniform traffic patterns, it is possible to compute both the expected number of hops taken by a representative packet and the total network capacity. When the traffic patterns are non-uniform, simple expressions for network capacity cannot be produced. The authors apply information theoretic concepts to find an upper-bound on the capacity which may be produced for an arbitrary non-uniform user to-user traffic pattern, by any multihop network, along with a lower bound on the expected number of hops. Such bounds are useful as yardsticks against which the performance of specific approaches may be compared or ensure that, the network can meet the intended traffic load. Furthermore, they are equally applicable to any type of networks characterized by packet switching nodes/access stations and directed connectivity graphs