Traffic classification and fairness in wavelength routed optical networks

The wavelength continuity constraint on the routing and wavelength assignment algorithms gives rise to a serious problem of fairness due to which longer-hop lightpaths (4-hop, 5-hop) suffer from a higher blocking probability as compared to shorter-hop lightpaths. By using wavelength reservation we try to control the contention of resources. We investigate the impact of different wavelength assignment schemes and routing algorithms on the wavelength reservation. By using a combination of routing and wavelength assignment schemes with wavelength reservation we show in this paper that the fairness problem can be mitigated.