Performance of a slotted MAC protocol for WDM metropolitan access ring networks under self-similar traffic

This article proposes a WDM slotted-ring network architecture. Used as a metropolitan access network, it is shown through theoretical predictions and simulation results how a simple MAC protocol can be implemented to achieve fairness between access nodes and efficient bandwidth utilization. In the paper it is shown that the MAC protocol efficiency grows with the number of nodes in the network - a very attractive feature in the metropolitan market. Simple theoretical equations allow for easy provisioning of the network size and scalability. These were validated by discrete-event simulations using realistic traffic sources. The original set of simulation results using a source-stripping scheme are then compared with an improved implementation where destination-stripping is used. Finally, the impact of receiver collision is studied and a solution to this problem is presented.