Contention processing schemes for WDM networks with control channels

The main objective of this paper is to investigate contention processing schemes that improve the performance of wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) networks with control channels while avoiding electronic bottle-neck. For this purpose, we propose two novel contention processing schemes: local collision blocking (LCB) and local collision blocking-contention resolution (LCB-CR) schemes. We also consider two other schemes: pure contention and contention resolution unit-only (CRU-only) schemes as the lower and the upper performance bounds, respectively. Applying these four schemes to the delayed-ALOHA access protocol, we compare their throughputs and show that the proposed schemes are effective in achieving significant performance improvement with moderate system complexity.