Local-Traffic-Redirection-Based Dynamic Bandwidth Assignment Scheme for EPON With Active Forwarding Remote Repeater Node

The Ethernet passive optical network (EPON) has been considered as one of the most suitable next-generation optical access solutions. As a time-division multiplexing PON (TDM-PON) technology, the transmission media of EPON is shared among multiple users. Therefore, medium access control (MAC) protocol plays an important role in enabling a dynamic bandwidth assignment (DBA) mechanism that provides efficient and fair utilization of the PON resources. However, the DBA mechanism implemented in products is open for vendor customization. In this paper, we propose a novel local-traffic-prediction-based dynamic bandwidth assignment (LT-DBA) mechanism applicable in a remote-repeater-based EPON system with active forwarding. The LT-DBA aims to improve the bandwidth utilization and average packet delay performance of EPON in upstream transmission in comparison to conventional bandwidth assignment techniques such as static bandwidth assignment (SBA) and the interleaved polling algorithm (IPACT), leading to a more efficient PON system.