Performance analysis of a multichannel local lightwave network with grouping property

The authors propose a multichannel lightwave network with a grouping property which exhibits better channel efficiency as the traffic is more likely within groups. The network also avoids both wavelength agility and pretransmission coordination problems. Two network topologies are considered. One is a multichannel lightwave network with full connection within groups. While it requires many receivers in each network interface unit (NIU) it exhibits low queuing delay and high network capacity. The other is a multichannel lightwave network with minimal connection within groups. While it gives relatively poor delay-throughput characteristics, a network can be constructed with each NIU having only two fixed-wavelength receivers. The network capacities and the mean queuing delays for the two network topologies are presented