Optical Switching and Networking 15 (2015) 148159

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Optical Switching and Networking

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/osn

Multi-OLT and multi-wavelength PON-based open access

network for improving the throughput and quality of services
Monir Hossen, Masanori Hanawa n
Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Medicine and Engineering, University of Yamanashi, Japan

a r t i c l e in f o

abstract

Article history:
Received 26 March 2014
Received in revised form
5 September 2014
Accepted 6 September 2014
Available online 30 October 2014

Passive optical network (PON) provides enough bandwidth for combining multiple service
providers' in addition to the fiber to the home (FTTH) network. Multiple optical line
terminals (multi-OLT) PON-based hybrid network is an efficient access network that
provides an effective solution for reducing the computational complexity of data packet
processing of multiple service providers having different packet lengths and data rates.
However, in the multi-OLT PON-based hybrid networks, data transmission in the single
upstream channel requires a complicated dynamic bandwidth allocation (DBA) algorithm
for improving the bandwidth sharing efficiency among the multiple service providers. In
this paper, we propose a new network architecture for a PON-based open access network
(OAN) where every optical network unit (ONU) of the PON will be shared by all the service
providers and in the central office multiple OLTs will be connected to handle the data
packets of multiple service providers. In the upstream direction, we propose to use
multiple wavelengths for modulating the data packets of multiple service providers and to
avoid the requirement of a complicated DBA algorithm. The simulation results show that
the multi-OLT and multi-wavelength PON-based OAN (MM-OAN) provides higher bandwidth utilization, higher upstream efficiency and higher throughput with a lower
overhead to data ratio and jitter than the single-OLT and single wavelength PON-based
OAN (SS-OAN). The overall throughput of the proposed scheme has been increased more
than by a factor equal to the number of wavelengths employed than that of the SS-OAN.
& 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Open access network
PON
FTTH
Multi-OLT PON
Hybrid networks

1. Introduction
An open access network (OAN) is a hybrid network
where multiple service providers can use the network
simultaneously. The OAN is open to any service provider,
local or otherwise, and can use it to offer different services
to the subscribers. The service providers are able to offer
any number of services and the subscribers are also able to
choose any service provider for each of the services those

Corresponding author. Tel.: 81 552208683.

E-mail address: hanawa@ieee.org (M. Hanawa).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.osn.2014.09.001
1573-4277/& 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

they choose to subscribe to [1,2]. Multiple service providers are expected to be deployed in the future modern
cities in addition to the fiber to the home (FTTH) network,
e.g., wireless sensor networks (WSNs), high-definition
television (HDTV) or video on demand (VoD), and Femto
networks (FNs). Usually, in any hybrid network, the central
office (CO) provides independent connection with the
different networks or service providers [3]. The conventional OAN also provides independent connections
between the CO and different service providers through
a common access network and any service provider can
connect to that access network using a single access
terminal. The passive optical network (PON) can be used

M. Hossen, M. Hanawa / Optical Switching and Networking 15 (2015) 148159

as a common access network of the OAN because the PON

provides huge bandwidth demand [4] with very lower
cost [5]. In the PON-based OAN, the optical line terminal
(OLT) of the PON will be acting as a CO and all the optical
network units (ONUs) of the PON will be acting as the
access terminals of an OAN and each ONU will be shared
by all the service providers. As the PON provides huge
bandwidth it can support the bandwidth demand of newly
deployed multiple operators in a densely populated city.
However, connecting several service providers of the OAN
with a single OLT PON is not efficient because providing
individual connections to the different service providers
require so much computational operation that increases
the burden of data processing and managements in the
OLT. Moreover, different service providers have different
data rates and packet lengths. To overcome these difficulties in the single-OLT PON, a multi-OLT PON-based OAN
can be a good candidate to connect several service providers in an OAN.
In the multi-OLT PON-based hybrid networks, proposed
by Hossen et al. [6,7], each ONU connects to the users of a
single service provider that means no need to share a
single ONU by the multiple service providers. However, in
the PON-based OAN each ONU should be shared by all the
service providers. That is why some modification is
required in the existing multi-OLT PON-based hybrid networks to make it fit for the OAN. Moreover, the existing
multi-OLT PON-based hybrid network is a scheme that
follows the time division multiplexing (TDM) principles
and it requires a complicated dynamic bandwidth allocation (DBA) algorithm to improve the bandwidth sharing
efficiency and bandwidth management in the upstream
channel of the TDM PON. To avoid the requirement of a
complicated DBA algorithm multiple wavelengths for
multiple service providers can be used. The upstream data
packets of multiple service providers connected to an ONU
can be transmitted simultaneously by using individual
wavelength for each service provider. Here, the upstream
time slot allocated for each ONU is overlapped by the
upstream transmission of multiple service providers
modulated by the multiple wavelengths.
In this paper, we propose a new network architecture
for a PON-based OAN where multiple OLTs and multiple
uplink wavelengths are used for multiple service providers, i.e., FTTH, WSN, HDTV/VoD, and FNs. In the proposed
scheme, each OLT independently handles the data packets
of a particular service provider in the network and
upstream data packet of each service provider is modulated by a particular wavelength. For example, if an ONU of
a PON-based OAN shared by m service providers, then the
number of OLTs and uplink wavelengths will be m. The
proposed network architecture is called multi-OLT and
multi-wavelength PON-based OAN (MM-OAN). We have
conducted extensive theoretical and numerical analyses on
different performance parameters in terms of the throughput, bandwidth utilization, upstream efficiency, overhead
to data ratio, and time jitter. All the performance parameters of the MM-OAN are also compared with those of
the single-OLT and single uplink wavelength PON-based
OAN (SS-OAN). The analyses are conducted using four OLTs
and four uplink wavelengths for four service providers

149

connected to each ONU in the MM-OAN and a single OLT

and single uplink wavelength for the four service providers in the SS-OAN. Compared with the SS-OAN, the MMOAN provides better performance.
The rest of this paper is organized in 7 sections. Section 2
represents the related works. The network architecture and
timing diagram for the MM-OAN are investigated in Section 3.
Internal buffer architecture and bandwidth allocation principles with an upstream frame format for the proposed MMOAN are presented in Section 4. In Section 5, we explain the
simulation environment in detail. Section 6 explains the
simulation results. Finally, our conclusions are presented in
Section 7.
2. Related works
In this section, we briefly review on different DBA
algorithms for PON-based access networks. In [8],
a multi-threaded scheduling algorithm is considered for
a hybrid WDM/TDM PON. The scheduling scheme of the
multiple wavelengths allows sending multiple transmissions at a same time. The multi-threaded polling scheme
can effectively reduce the propagation delay by employing
the interleaved polling algorithm in the long range (LR)
PON [8,9]. The combination of wavelength scheduling
scheme with the earliest finish time with void filling
(EFT-VF) algorithm for LR WDM/TDM EPON [10] provides
reduced average packet delay. However, wavelength scheduling scheme in addition to the DBA algorithm provides
additional complexity.
McGarry et al. [11] have proposed a single tread
scheduling algorithm for grant sizing. In the scheduling
frame work, the OLT receives bandwidth requests from the
entire ONUs in a time cycle and activates the grant
messages for each ONU. It does not consider any service
differentiation for allocating the maximum granted windows in a time cycle. In the elementary grant sizing
scheme [12], reporting is considered at the beginning of
the upstream transmission that provides fairness among
the ONUs and reduces the delay. In [13], a detail review
and numerical analysis have been shown for both the
online interleaved polling and offline multi-thread polling
algorithms of LR-PONs. The comparison results show that
the multi-thread polling algorithm can reduce the queuing
and reporting delays but the interleaved polling algorithm
provides better end-to-end delay performance with higher
throughput.
A detail analytical model of IPACT service has been
presented in [14]. In the analysis, Poisson distribution is
considered to model the incoming packet rate and all the
packets have a fixed length. Considering all the assumptions it leads to a complicated system and the author could
not analyzed the model mathematically. However, ns-2
network simulator was used to prove that the analytical
model of IPACT was valid based on the obtained results.
A modified LS bandwidth allocation scheme has been
proposed for upstream transmission to multiple OLTs [15].
The scheme reserves an upstream bandwidth toward each
OLT. Alike the LS scheme it also limits the maximum
bandwidth per ONU and allocates bandwidth considering
the real traffic loads. In contrast, in the downstream

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M. Hossen, M. Hanawa / Optical Switching and Networking 15 (2015) 148159

direction each OLT reserves a downstream bandwidth for a

service. If an OLT of a particular service provider suffers
from a sudden high load then the OLT of other service
provider distributes its unutilized bandwidth to that OLT.
In the 2-OLT system, two different wavelengths are used
by the two OLTs as a WDM manner during the normal
operation. However, a shared bandwidth scheme is used
during the faulty condition of an OLT [16].
Hossen et al. [6,7] have proposed a new DBA algorithm
for the multi-OLT PON-based hybrid networks. However,
those papers have considered a network structure where a
single uplink wavelength is used and every ONU is connected to a single service provider. That means sharing of
an ONU by multiple service providers is not required.
In this paper, we have used single thread scheduling,
online interleaved polling, scheme for multiple OLTs. Our
work differentiates all other previous works by employing
multiple OLTs and multiple wavelengths with sharing
ONUs for multiple service providers. The multiple OLTs
reduce the data processing complexity in a conventional
OLT-based PON system while the sharing ONU and multiple uplink wavelength provide simultaneous upstream
transmission. The maximum granted window for each
service provider connected to an ONU is different. That
means if an ONU is connected to the m service providers
then the number of maximum transmission windows and
the number uplink wavelengths will also be m. However,
each service provider uses a particular wavelength that
does not require wavelength scheduling in a time cycle.
3. Network architecture and timing diagram for an
MM-OAN
In this section, we explain about the proposed MMOAN architecture. Next, we explain the timing diagram for
the upstream and downstream data transmissions in the
MM-OAN. In this MM-OAN, multiple uplink wavelengths

are used for multiple service providers in an ONU and each

ONU is shared by all the service providers while the single
downlink wavelength is used for the multiple OLTs.
3.1. Network architecture of an MM-OAN
The architecture of the MM-OAN is a new network
concept of the PON. In the MM-OAN, different service
providers will be comprised in a single network having
multiple OLTs and each ONU will be shared by all the
service providers in the network. The number of OLTs
depends on the practical scenario, the number of service
providers installed, in an OAN. If an OAN comprises m
different service providers, then the number of OLTs will
be m, e.g., OLT1 for the FTTH terminals, OLT2 for the WSNs,
OLT3 for the HDTV/VoD, and OLT m for the FNs. That is
why, OLT1 does not consider about the data packet processing complexity of other service providers' except the FTTH
terminals. If a single OLT deals with the data packets of m
service providers in the network then the OLT must be busier
for handling the data packets with different properties and
packet sizes as the different service providers offer data
packets with different packet lengths and data rates. On the
other hand, each ONU will be shared by the m service
providers with the m different uplink wavelengths. Therefore, the number of OLTs and uplink wavelengths may vary;
however, for simplicity, only two OLTs and two uplink
wavelengths for two service providers are shown in Fig. 1.
For connecting each sensor node to an ONU a cluster-based
WSN is considered where each cluster consists of a static
cluster head (CH) connected to an ONU through an optical
fiber [17]. In the case of the FNs, each Femto access point
(Femto-AP) will be connected to an ONU through an optical
fiber. In every PON, a polling table is used to store the
information of the round trip times (RTTs) of the entire
ONUs. The proposed MM-OAN also uses a single polling table
and all the OLTs will get the RTT information from that single

Fig. 1. Network architecture and data transmissions for an MM-OAN.

M. Hossen, M. Hanawa / Optical Switching and Networking 15 (2015) 148159

polling table. As all the OLTs use same polling table for RTT
information, in the proposed scheme, it is called shared
polling table. The shared polling table is also used to provide
synchronization among the multiple OLTs [6]. The proposed
MM-OAN architecture is considered to be deployed in the
city area, i.e. short range (SR) PON, to connect several service
providers. However, a longer feeder optical fiber between the
splitter and array waveguide grating (AWG) can be installed
to implement the architecture for a long range (LR) PON.
In the upstream direction of the proposed MM-OAN,
the data packets of a particular service provider will be
accepted by the designated OLT through a passive splitter
and an AWG. The upstream channel in a time cycle will be
divided by the number of active ONUs N, i.e., Tslot Tcycle/N.
Here, Tslot is the time-slot for each ONU in a time cycle and
Tcycle is the length of a time cycle. A Tslot of an ONU will be
occupied by overlapping the data packets from the different service providers by using the different uplink wavelengths. As shown in the figure, the upstream data packets
of the FTTH terminals connected to the ONUs 1N are
modulated by the wavelength u1 and transmitted in the
time slots 1, 2, 3, N. In contrast, the upstream data
packets of the CHs of a WSN connected to the ONUs 1N
are modulated by the wavelength u2 and transmitted in
the time slots 1, 2, 3, N, respectively. Here, the length of
the feeder cable between the AWG and the splitter will be
limited to few tens of kilometers as the network will be
deployed in the cities.
In the downstream direction of the proposed MM-OAN,
each OLT will broadcast data to the network through a
passive splitter in a time division multiple access (TDMA)
manner using a single downstream wavelength d. Here,
the broadcasted data of each OLT contains the downstream
data packets and control messages to a particular service
provider of the entire ONUs. As shown in the Fig. 1, the
OLT1 broadcasts the downstream data packets and control
messages to the FTTH terminal of all the ONUs while the
OLT2 broadcasts the downstream data packets and control
messages to the CHs of a WSN of all the ONUs.
The multi point control protocol (MPCP) provides timing reference to synchronize all the ONUs in the network.
In the MPCP, timing synchronization among ONUs is

151

achieved by calculating the RTT and by maintaining a

polling table. The RTT depends on the physical distance
from the OLT to an ONU. On the other hand, the MPCP uses
a DBA algorithm to allocate the upstream transmission
window or timeslots for every ONU and to share the single
optical fiber link with multiple ONUs. Fig. 2 illustrates the
MPCP for an MM-OAN where two OLTs and an ONU shared
by two different service providers are shown. Here, both
the OLTs receive two reports messages from the two
service providers, e.g., FTTH and WSN, of an ONU. In the
downstream transmission, the MPCP maintains a timestamp with its local time and broadcasts two Gate messages from two OLTs to the ONU. In the upstream
transmission, the ONU transmits data packets from two
different buffers of FTTH and WSN using two different
uplink wavelengths and the OLT1 accepts data packets
from the FTTH buffer while the OLT2 accepts data packets
from the WSN buffer. The upstream transmission window
of each buffer also contains a Report message at the end of
its timeslots to request the desired transmission window
in the next time cycle Tcycle. Upon receiving the Report
message at the OLTs, the MPCP incorporated with the DBA
algorithm and determines the allocated transmission windows and recalculates the required overhead and RTT to
update the polling table.
The proposed scheme is exclusively design for connecting several service providers onto one PON in a city area.
Usually, the proposed network architecture will be very
much effective for providing low cost bandwidth demand
in the huge populated area of developing countries.
Because, it provides both the multi-wavelength and TDMA
principles that will provide higher performance but the
cost will be lower than the WDM-PON technology.
The XGPON is a new technology that performs with the
multiple service providers but it requires higher cost than
the existing PON architecture [18,19] that will not be
reasonable for the users of the developing countries. In
contrast, MM-OAN uses existing PON architecture that
requires less cost than the XGPON. Moreover, the OAN
concept in a PON with the multiple OLTs is more effective,
as the multiple OLTs reduce the complexity of data packet
processing of multiple service providers, for connecting

Fig. 2. MPCP operation in an MM-OAN.

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M. Hossen, M. Hanawa / Optical Switching and Networking 15 (2015) 148159

multiple service providers using a single access terminal

that is also different and cost effective than the WDM and
XGPON technologies.
3.2. Timing diagram for an MM-OAN
Fig. 3 shows a timing diagram for the proposed MMOAN. In the figure, for simplicity, only two service providers connected to every ONU, two OLTs, and a shared
polling table are considered. The scheduling of the control
messages follows the modified interleaved polling algorithm for the multi-OLT PON [6]. Here, both the OLTs are
acknowledged about the RTT of each ONU from the shared
polling table. The vertical lines among the OLTs and shared
polling table shown in Fig. 3 represent the transmission of
RTT information between the shared polling table and
both the OLTs. As the OLTs and shared polling table are
placed in the same location, i.e., at the CO, there is no
propagation delay to transmit the RTT information among
the OLTs and shared polling table. After getting the
information about the RTTs of all the ONUs, both the OLTs
broadcast the downstream data packets and the Gate
messages for the two different service providers, e.g., FTTH
and WSN, then all the ONUs transmit the upstream data
packets from both the service providers by using two
different wavelengths, e.g., u1 for the FTTH data packets
and u2 for the WSN data packets. The Upstream packets
from every two succeeding ONUs are discriminated by a
guard time to avoid the fluctuation of round trip time
(FRTT) and data collisions. Even though, two service
providers and two OLTs are shown in the figure the
number of service providers and the OLTs can be increased
up to the m. In that case, the number of upstream
wavelengths also will be m. However, the number of the
downstream wavelengths is restricted by only one.
4. Internal buffer architecture and bandwidth allocation
principles for an MM-OAN
In this section, we explain about the internal buffer
architecture in both the downstream and upstream directions of the proposed MM-OAN. Next, we explain the
bandwidth allocation principles and the upstream frame
format in the MM-OAN.

Fig. 3. Timing diagram for an MM-OAN.

4.1. Internal buffer architectures of an ONU for an MM-OAN

In order to implement the principle that in the MMOAN an ONU will be shared by the multiple service
providers, modification of the conventional internal buffer
architecture [21,22] in an ONU is required. That is why, in
this paper, we propose a new internal buffer architecture
for the proposed MM-OAN. In the proposed internal buffer
structure of the MM-OAN, each ONU consists of multiple
buffers for the multiple service providers connected to that
ONU. The maximum number of buffers in an ONU depends
on the maximum number of service providers connected
to that ONU. That means each buffer of an ONU is devoted
for the data packets of a particular service provider.
Fig. 4 shows the proposed internal buffer architecture
of an ONU for the downstream transmission in an MMOAN. In the downstream transmission, each ONU receives
the downstream data packets from all the OLTs and the
received data packets are stored in the corresponding
downstream buffer. Then every ONU transmits the downstream data packets from the downstream buffers to the
corresponding users connected to that ONU. The above
figure represents an internal buffer architecture in the
downstream direction of an ONU for the m different
service providers, e.g., the buffer1 for the FTTH networks,
the buffer2 for the WSN, and the buffer m for the FN.
Therefore, the number of buffers should be directly proportional to the number of service providers connected to
an ONU. A buffer management unit (BMU) is also used to
monitor and control the downstream data flow of a service
provider to the designated buffer [22].
Fig. 5 shows the internal buffer architecture of an ONU
for the upstream transmission in the proposed MM-OAN.
In the upstream transmission of the MM-OAN, primarily,
data packets from the different service providers are
stored in their designated buffers of each ONU, i.e., data
packets from the FTTH terminals are stored in the buffer
for the FTTH networks, data packets from the CH of WSN
are stored in the buffer for the WSN, and data packets from
the Femto access point (AP) are stored in the buffer for the
FN. Secondly, the stored data packets from the different
buffers are modulated with the different uplink wavelengths, e.g., wavelengths u1, u2, um for the service
providers 1, 2, m, respectively, and simultaneously

Fig. 4. Internal buffer architecture of an ONU for the downstream

transmission in an MM-OAN.

M. Hossen, M. Hanawa / Optical Switching and Networking 15 (2015) 148159

transmitted to the CO through an AWG as shown in Fig. 5.

The main limitations of an ONU with this buffer architecture are the requirement of an AWG and individual laser
diode (LD) for each service provider these will restrict the
maximum number of service providers connected to an
ONU. Since, the cost of an ONU will be increased with the
number of LDs and an AWG. In the upstream transmission,
the BMU is not required because the data packets from all
the buffers are simultaneously transmitted through a
single optical channel.

4.2. Bandwidth allocation principles for an MM-OAN

Fig. 6 shows an upstream frame format of an MM-OAN.
Here, the modified version of the limited service (LS)
scheme [20] is used to divide the upstream bandwidth
among the ONUs. In any DBA scheme, the length of a time
cycle Tcycle is flexible and it maintains an upper bound, i.e.,
max
T cycle r T max
cycle , here, T cycle is the maximum length of a time
cycle. In the proposed scheme, the maximum cycle time
T max
cycle is equally divided into the total number of ONUs N to
provide the maximum transmission window max for an
max
ONU, i.e., max T max
is occupied by the
cycle =N. Every
data packets from the different service providers using the
different wavelengths. In the figure, the max for the ONU1
is occupied by the data packets DSP1, DSP2, DSPm
modulated by the uplink wavelengths u1, u2, um from
the service providers 1, 2, m, respectively. All the service
providers transmit same Ethernet overhead and individual
Report message, i.e., R1, R2, Rm for the service providers

153

1, 2, and m, respectively, using the different uplink

wavelengths.
In the upstream transmission of the proposed MMOAN, four service providers are considered and they are
divided into two groups depending on the generated
packet lengths. We assume that the service providers
FTTH and FNs are in group one while the service providers
WSN and HDTV/VoD are in group two. The Grouping of the
service providers is just our assumption on the basis of the
upstream packet lengths of the different service providers
which is not limited as it is. The length of a maximum
upstream transmission window for the group one is max_1
while the length of a maximum transmission window for
the group two is max_2. Here, max_1 max and max_2 omax because the length of the generated upstream
packets of the service providers in the group one are
larger than those of the service providers in the group two.
The maximum granted window in the upstream direction
for each ONU is calculated as follows:
(
max _1 for the heavily loaded ONUs
max
grant_
1

i;j
max _2 for the lightly loaded ONUs
max
is the maximum granted window for the
where grant_
i;j
ONU i at the time cycle j.
However, if the requested window sizes are less than
the maximum transmission windows then the granted
window size grant
for the ONU i at the time cycle j is
i;j
calculated as below
8
R_2
< R_1
if R_1
i;j
i;j 4i;j
grant
i;j
2
R_2
: R_2
if R_1
i;j
i;j oi:j

is the requested window size by the service

where R_1
i;j
max _1
providers of group one and R_1
, and R_2
i;j oi;j
i;j is the
requested window size by the service providers of group
max _2
two and R_2
.
i;j oi;j
Due to this dynamic variation in the granted transmission windows to the ONUs in every time cycle the Tcycle is
changed. Calculation of the Tcycle at the time cycle j is given
below
N

T cycle;j grant
x;j
Fig. 5. Internal buffer architecture of an ONU for the upstream transmission
in an MM-OAN.

x1

where x is an integer and x 1, 2, 3, N.

Fig. 6. Upstream frame format of an MM-OAN.

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M. Hossen, M. Hanawa / Optical Switching and Networking 15 (2015) 148159

Calculation of Tcycle is required to measure the jitter

performance of the DBA scheme. In the conventional LS
scheme, single max is used that provide more dynamic
nature of Tcycle and causes larger time jitter. In contrast, in
the proposed scheme, two different max are used for two
different groups of service providers to reduce the variation of Tcycle in different time cycle and that provides less
time jitter.

without taking into consideration any priority scheduling.

The simulation parameters are summarized in Table 1.
The bandwidth utilization BWU in an MM-OAN using
the bandwidth allocation principles explained in the previous section is expressed by

5. Performance evaluation by simulation

where m is the number of service providers connected to

an ONU, TC is the summation of BR/R, BE/R, Tproc, and TGI.
The proposed MM-OAN can achieve higher BWU than
the SS-OAN by utilizing a single upstream channel by
simultaneous transmission of the upstream data packets
from the multiple service providers.
The ratio between the successful upstream transmission and the total generated traffic in the network is called
the upstream efficiency. The expression for the upstream
efficiency of an MM-OAN is

In this section, the performance of the proposed

MM-OAN is evaluated in terms of the throughput, bandwidth utilization, upstream efficiency, overhead to data
ratio, and jitter. All these parameters are evaluated by
simulation results. The evaluation was performed using
laboratory-made computer simulation programs. In the
evaluation, an OAN architecture with four OLTs for the four
different service providers, i.e., FTTH, WSN, HDTV/VoD,
and FN, and 16 ONUs were considered where each ONU
was connected to the users of all the service providers. In
the upstream direction, four different wavelengths were
used for the four service providers while in the downstream direction a single wavelength was considered. In a
time cycle, the number of service providers connected to
an ONU was assumed to be random and in the range of 1
4. That means the number of service providers connected
to an ONU was not fixed over the time and this is the real
dynamic nature of the network traffics in an OAN. In the
MM-OAN, we have divided the four service providers into
two different groups and assigned two different maximum
transmission windows for the upstream transmission. The
downstream and upstream channel speeds were considered at 1 Gbps. The distances from the ONUs to the OLTs
were assumed to be random and in the range of 1020 km,
since the network is considered to be deployed in the
cities. However, some results also have been presented for
the LR PON and the distances from the ONUs and OLTs
were assumed to be random in the range of 80100 km. All
the data packets were assumed to have the same priority,
meaning the service policy was on a first-in first-out (FIFO)
basis with four individual infinite buffers for the four
service providers in each ONU. A highly bursty selfsimilar network traffic model [23] was used to generate
the data packets for all the service providers. This traffic
model generated the network traffics for all the service
providers from 0 to multiple packets in every time cycle,
and the total requested window sizes of an ONU depended
on the number of packets multiplied by the maximum
length of a packet, PBmax _1 for the service providers in the
group one and PBmax _2 for the service providers in the
group two. The maximum packet length, i.e.,Bmax _1 , for the
service providers in the group one was 1500 bytes [24]
while the maximum packet length, i.e., Bmax _2 , for the
service providers in the group two was 1024 bytes [25].
The processing time was assumed to be 10 ms for the MMOAN, as used by Hwang et al. [26]. All the analyses were
performed for a non-uniform offered load in the range of
01.0 with a variable cycle time in the range of 0.53 ms.
Our simulation took into consideration the queuing delay,
transmission delay, congestion delay, and processing delay,

BWU

UE

grant
Nm
k 1 k

Nm
grant NT C
k1 k

grant
Nm
k 1 k
;
max
m
Nk 1 P k B
NT C

where UE is the upstream efficiency.

The overhead to data ratio ODR is defined by the ratio
between the total overhead and total granted transmission
windows in a time cycle. Lower value of ODR provides
higher QoSs in a PON-based OAN. Following equation is
used to calculate the ODR in an MM-OAN:
ODR

NT C

Nm
grant
k1 k

The burst network traffic and variation in the length of

a Tcycle in every time cycle causes the fluctuations in the
data arrival times in different time cycles. To measure the
variation in the data packet arrival time, the jitter performance of the proposed MM-OAN was analyzed. The jitter

Table 1
Simulation parameters.
Symbol Quantity
NOLT
N
m
d
u
Tproc
Tcycle
TGI
R
BE
BR
Bmax _1
Bmax _2
P

Number of OLTs
Number of ONUs
Number of service providers
Number of downstream wavelengths
Number of upstream wavelengths
Data processing time per service provider
Cycle time
Guard time
Transmission speed
Length of Ethernet overhead
Length of Report message
Maximum packet length for service providers
in the group one
Maximum packet length for service providers
in the group two
Number of generated packets and each packet

Value
4
16
4
1
m
10ms
0.53.0 ms
5 ms
1 Gbps
576 bits
304 bits
1500 bytes
1024 bytes

010
length is Bmax _1 for service providers in group packets
one and Bmax _2 for service providers in group
two

M. Hossen, M. Hanawa / Optical Switching and Networking 15 (2015) 148159

can be calculated by
s
n
1
1 2
T jcycle
;
Jitter
T j
n j 1 cycle

where n is the number of time cycles, T jcycle is the data

packets' arrival time at time cycle j, and j1, 2, 3 n.
6. Simulation results
In this section, the performances of the proposed MMOAN in terms of throughput, BWU, UE, ODR, and jitter are
compared to those of the SS-OAN. To analyze all of these
performances non-uniform burst network traffics were
considered in both the upstream and the downstream
directions. In this paper, all the results are presented using
contour plots and in the contour plots lighter colors signify
better performance.
The analysis of throughputs in the upstream direction
for the SS-OAN and MM-OAN for a range of maximal cycle
times and offered loads are shown in Fig. 7(a) and (b),
respectively. In these contour plots the MM-OAN provides
the maximum throughput of 2 Gbps while the maximum
throughput in the SS-OAN is 0.6 Gbps. Here, the maximum
throughput provides in the MM-OAN is higher than the
bandwidth of the network of 1 Gbps. The main reason
of this higher throughput in the MM-OAN is that the
MM-OAN provides the simultaneous transmissions of

155

multiple upstream packets by using the multiple wavelengths for the multiple service providers connected to an
ONU. Fig. 8(a) and (b) compare the throughput vs offered
load in the upstream direction between the SS-OAN and
MM-OAN for 2-ms and 4-ms cycle times, respectively.
Here, the MM-OAN uses only 1 Gbps bandwidth while
both the 4 Gbps and 1 Gbps bandwidths are used for the
SS-OAN. From this figure we can see that the difference of
throughput between the MM-OAN and SS-OAN increases
gradually from the lowest offered load to the highest
offered load. At the highest offered load of 1.0 the MMOAN provides more than 400% higher throughput than the
SS-OAN for 1 Gbps bandwidth in both the schemes. In
contrast, the MM-OAN provides more than 25% higher
throughput than the SS-OAN when the MM-OAN uses
1 Gbps and SS-OAN uses 4 Gbps bandwidth. This comparison proves than the MM-OAN provides higher throughput
even though 4 times larger bandwidth is used in the
SS-OAN for 4 different service providers.
From the analysis of the contour plots in Fig. 7(a) and (b)
and comparison of throughput for a 2 ms and 4 ms cycle
times in Fig. 8(a) and (b) we found that the proposed MMOAN provides almost more than 400% and 25% higher
throughput than the SS-OAN for 1 Gbps and 4 Gbps bandwidth, respectively, at the highest offered load of 1.0. The
main reason of this improvement in the proposed MM-OAN
than the SS-OAN is the use of the multiple upstream
wavelengths and simultaneous transmissions of the

Fig.7. Throughput in the upstream direction for the SS-OAN and MM-OAN.

Fig. 8. Comparison of throughput in the upstream direction. (a) 2 ms cycle time and (b) 4 ms cycle time.

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M. Hossen, M. Hanawa / Optical Switching and Networking 15 (2015) 148159

Fig. 9. Comparison of performances between the SS-OAN and MM-OAN, (a) Bandwidth utilization, (b) upstream efficiency, (c) overhead to data ratio, and
(d) Jitter in ms.

M. Hossen, M. Hanawa / Optical Switching and Networking 15 (2015) 148159

upstream data packets through a single upstream channel

by the multiple service providers. This difference would be
larger if the analyses were repeated for a larger number of
service providers and uplink wavelengths connected to an
ONU. The second reason is the reduction of data processing
time and computational complexity by dividing the total
computational complexity and data processing time of
multiple service providers into the multiple OLTs. The third
reason is a modification of the conventional LS scheme to
make it fit for the MM-OAN where all the service providers
are divided into two groups with two different maximum
transmission windows. This new bandwidth allocation
principle effectively reduces the bandwidth wastage and
increases the bandwidth sharing efficiency among the
multiple service providers. The final reason is the aggregation of the multiple service providers in an ONU that
reduces the probability of the lightly loaded ONUs and the
ratio of the overhead to effective data packets.
Fig. 9(a)(d) shows the comparison of BWU, UE, ODR,
and jitter, for the conventional LS scheme in the SS-OAN,
left figures, and a modified version of the LS scheme in the
MM-OAN, right figures. These contour plots for the maximal cycle times and offered loads signify the better
performances of the proposed MM-OAN architecture than
the SS-OAN. From the analysis of these contour plots, it is
clear that at the highest offered load of 1.0 the MM-OAN
with the new bandwidth allocation principles provides
about 19% and 28% higher BWU and UE with 300% and
150% lower ODR and jitter, respectively, than those of the
SS-OAN.
Even though the main emphasis of this paper is to
provide higher throughput in the proposed MM-OAN than
the SS-OAN but the results in the Fig. 9(a)(d) proves that
the proposed MM-OAN is far superior to the SS-OAN in
terms of all the performance parameters. The reason in
improving BWU and UE in the MM-OAN is the simultaneous transmission of upstream data packets by using the
multiple uplink wavelengths and reducing the processing
time by using the multiple OLTs for the multiple service
providers that reduces the overhead to effective data ratio.
Moreover, the proposed scheme uses two different maximum transmission windows for two service providers
groups that effectively reduce the light load effect of an
ONU but the SS-OAN uses the conventional LS scheme
that does not consider the light load effect. As we know
that the jitter and overhead cannot be avoided in a DBA
scheme and a network having the self-similar traffics and

157

the Ethernet overhead but the MM-OAN provides significantly less ODR and jitter in both the directions of
maximal cycle times and offered loads than the SS-OAN
as shown in the contour plots of Fig. 9(c) and (d). The
reduction of the ODR and jitter are achieved due to the
new bandwidth allocation principle that uses two different maximum transmission windows for improving the
bandwidth sharing efficiency and reducing the bandwidth
wastage.
This paper considers a PON-based OAN that will be
deployed in the city area. Usually, a SR PON will be
enough to cover the whole city area. However, in this
paper, the jitter performances of the proposed MM-OAN
have been analyzed for both the SR PON and LR PON to
prove that the proposed scheme is capable to provide
better performance than the SS-OAN in both the SR and
LR PONs. Typically, the jitter is increased with the
distances between the OLTs and ONUs. Fig. 10(a) and (b)
shows the comparison of jitter between the MM-OAN and
SS-OAN for both the SR and LR PONs and for 2 ms and
4 ms cycle times, respectively. Here, the results show that
if the cycle time is increased then the jitters are decreased
for both the MM-OAN and SS-OAN because in the larger
cycle time the accumulated traffics suffer from lower
congestion. From the results it is also clear that the
proposed scheme provides far lower jitter, i.e., about
400% lower jitter at an offered load of 1.0, than the SSOAN for both the SR and LR PONs. Finally, we can
conclude that the proposed scheme utilizes the light load
effect and reduces the bandwidth wastage and provides
lower jitter with higher throughput in both the SR and LR
PONs. Therefore, the proposed scheme can be used as
either the city area network or the LR PON.
From the analysis of all the performances it is clear that
the proposed MM-OAN provides superior performances
than the SS-OAN. However, to prove the effectiveness for
implementation of the proposed scheme a tradeoff analysis between the performance enhancement and cost
comparison is important. Table 2 shows a relative cost
comparison between the proposed MM-OAN and SS-OAN.
Here, 4 service providers, and 4 OLTs are considered for the
MM-OAN while a single OLT and 4 four service providers
are considered for the SS-OAN.
From the above relative cost comparison table we can
say that no additional cost is required to implement the
proposed scheme instead the proposed MM-OAN provides
far better performances than the SS-OAN.

Fig. 10. Comparison of Jitter in ms, here, SR short range PON and LRlong range PON. (a) 2 ms cycle time and (b) 4 ms cycle time.

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M. Hossen, M. Hanawa / Optical Switching and Networking 15 (2015) 148159

Table 2
Relative cost comparison between the MM-OAN and SS-OAN.
Quantity

SS-OAN

MM-OAN

Number of OLT cards in the CO

Number of ONUs
Number of branches between the splitter and users
Requirement of additional power in the CO site

One
4  16
4  16
No addition power is required

Requirement of additional power in the ONU site

Additional power is required for 3  16 ONUs

Four
16
16
Small amout of additional power is required
for 3 more OLT cards
No additional power is required

7. Conclusion
In this paper, the performances of the proposed network architecture of the PON-based Multi-OLT and multiwavelength OAN, using the modified version of the LS
scheme have been numerically analyzed in terms of
throughput, BWU, UE, ODR, and jitter. All the analyses
were done for a range of non-uniform traffic loads and
variable maximal cycle times. The proposed MM-OAN
commendably utilizes and shares the huge bandwidth of
the optical network for the multiple service providers in a
network and reduces the computational complexity of
data packet processing. Finally, the performances of the
proposed MM-OAN are compared to those of the SS-OAN.
The MM-OAN provides tremendous improvements in
several performance parameters than the SS-OAN because
it effectively utilizes both the multi-OLT and multiwavelength effect on the upstream channel. Specially,
throughput in the MM-OAN is almost 400% higher than
that of the SS-OAN for the four service providers connected to an ONU at an offered load of 1.0 ms and a 2 ms
cycle time. This difference will be increased proportionally
with the number of service providers connected to an
ONU. It will not cause the lower power budget due to
increasing the number of service providers in an ONU
because all the service providers will use different wavelengths in the upstream transmission. However, the maximum number of service providers connected to an ONU
will be limited by the cost of that ONU. A tradeoff analysis
between the cost and performance enhancement with the
number of service providers connected to an ONU is
required to decide the optimum number of service providers connected to an ONU.

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