Chapter 7 Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation for Ethernet Passive Optical Networks

With the explosive growth of the Internet and ever-increasing users’ demand for various broadband applications, such as Internet telephony, high-definition television (HDTV), interactive games, and video on demand, subscriber access networks, which cover the “last mile” area, and serve numerous residential and small business users, have become a bandwidth bottleneck in providing broadband services to subscriber users (Zheng & Mouftah, 2004]. In recent years, subscriber access networks have been extensively upgraded with the deployment of innovative xDSL and CaTV technologies. However, these technologies have their own limitations and are insufficient to meet the ever-increasing bandwidth demand of subscriber users. To alleviate this bottleneck, fiber to the home/ curb/building (FTTH/FTTC/FTTB) technologies have been long envisioned as a preferred solution, and passive optical networks (PONs) have been widely considered as a promising technology for implementing various FTTx solutions. AbstrAct