A new media access control protocol for single hop WDM networks

In conventional protocols, when control packets collide with others or the packets didn't get a data channel from the channel reservation mechanism, these packets should be retransmitted. But, when transmission distance is long, it takes a long time to transmit the control packets and the propagation delay time will be long. We propose a new media access protocol for single hop wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) networks with a passive star topology. The proposed protocol can allocate data channels without retransmitting control packets except those that have collided. The simulation results show that the proposed protocol can provide high data channel usage rate and a low number of collided control packets even if the transmission distance is long. Furthermore, the proposed protocol performs well compared with conventional protocols.