Adaptive rate-based MAC protocols design and analysis for integrated FSO/PON networks

This paper proposes two novel medium access control (MAC) protocols, which jointly employ bandwidth allocation and adaptive rate concepts, to enhance the performance of uplink transmission of the integrated free-space optical/passive optical networks (FSO/PON). System performance metrics, including frame-loss rate, goodput and delay, are analytically studied under the presence of atmospheric turbulence. Numerical results quantitatively show how the proposed protocols significantly outperform the conventional one with fixed bandwidth allocation/fixed rate.