Efficient DWBA Algorithm for TWDM-PON with Mobile Fronthaul in 5G Networks

Time- and wavelength- division multiplexed passive optical network (TWDM-PON) have attracted attention as the next step in relation to optical access systems. A major application of TWDM-PON is expected to be fronthaul streams in the centralized radio access network (C-RAN) architecture of mobile networks. In the 5G era, the upstream traffic that OLT receives becomes highly bursty, because of the variable data rate generated by the functional split between baseband unit and remote radio heads, and the global synchronization of data transmission with time-division duplex (TDD). To flexibly allocate upstream bandwidth via the dynamic wavelength and bandwidth allocation (DWBA) scheme has been a hot research topic for TWDM-PON. However, there is no existing DWBA scheme for TWDM-PON that is designed to satisfy the strict delay requirement for fronthaul with minimum number of active wavelength channels. Therefore, in this paper we propose a novel efficient DWBA algorithm that minimizes active wavelength channels considering the high burstiness of fronthaul data transmission. With the proposed algorithm, the allowable delay and constraint for allocation timing for each ONU is formulated based on the different propagation delay between the OLT and ONUs. Then, the wavelength channel and bandwidth is allocated with the simple allocation algorithm based on the descending sort by propagation delay. It was confirmed through computer simulations that the proposed algorithm can reduce the number of active wavelength by 50% by considering propagation delay.