Adapting the EPON MAC Protocol to a Metropolitan Burst Switching Network

This paper discusses the possibility to apply Passive Optical Network (PON) mechanisms in the metropolitan area. It also argues the ability of the management plane to carry out the resource allocation function facing to the control plane in this area of the network. Therefore, a performance comparison study between a control plane driven MAC protocol and a management plane driven MAC protocol is performed in the context of TWIN (Time-domain Wavelength Interleaved Networking) solution. The comparison study is done by simulation in the frame of MEET architecture which aims to ensure an all optical aggregation between the regional metropolitan network area and the core network area. The simulation aims to assess the QoS delivered to three different service classes by using real packet granularity traffic traces.