Path division method for fairness in dynamic elastic optical path networks

Elastic optical path network can utilize spectrum resources efficiently exploiting the characteristic of flexible spectrum slots, compared to traditional WDM networks with rigid spectrum grid. Paths with long optical reach adapt to lower level of modulation format, and therefore, require more spectrum slots per a unit capacity of the optical path. This paper focuses on the relation between the length of optical paths and suitable modulation format in dynamic on-demand elastic optical path network. The dynamic elastic optical path networks give the unfairness that long hop connections have worse loss probability. To tackle the technical issue, we propose and investigate path division method in which one long optical path is divided into multiple short ones for improving loss probability. Simulation results show that the proposed method can improve loss probability, particularly, of paths with long optical reach and its fairness.