A user tunable access lightwave network

An approach to reconfiguration management of a wavelength-multiplexed multihop lightwave network, the user tunable access lightwave network, is proposed. It employs a fixed connection diagram among the multihop access stations but allows each user to select its home access station by means of a wavelength-agile optical transmitter, capable of retuning on a time scale comparable with the setup time of a new virtual connection. In this way it becomes possible to effect a reconfiguration with minimal impact on existing virtual connections. A traffic-driven heuristic is presented which can rapidly adapt to time-varying traffic patterns and which can be implemented on a distributed basis within the multihop access stations, with each station requiring knowledge of only its own generated traffic. Results for small networks (24 and 64 access stations) when offered certain types of randomly generated nonuniform traffic matrices, show a call-blocking performance comparable to that of an ideal, centralized packet switch