Access and metro scalable WDM architectures with medium access control protocol featuring optical burst switching

This article presents a new wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) access network architecture, which is extended towards the metropolitan area network (MAN) by introducing the concept of optical burst switching multiplexer (OBS-M). OBS-M bridges the MAN and access networks by offering optical cross-connection, wavelength conversion and data signaling. The access network uses the free spectral range (FSR) periodicity of the arrayed wavelength grating (AWG) to route data and signaling separately. Broadband communications of different class of service (CoS) are delivered with the support of a medium access control (MAC) protocol which suits random and bursty traffic providing low delay and quality of service (QoS).