Active intra-ONU scheduling with proportional guaranteed bandwidth in long-reach EPONs

The unused slot remainder (USR) problem in Ethernet Passive Optical Networks and long-reach Passive Optical Networks (LR-PONs) results in both a lower bandwidth utilization and a greater packet delay. In a previous study by the current group, an Active intra-ONU Scheduling with predictive queue report scheme was proposed for resolving the USR problem by predicting the granted bandwidth in advance based on the arrival traffic estimates of the optical network units (ONUs). However, it was found that the higher bandwidth prediction error in the proposed scheme prevents the network performance from being improved. Accordingly, the present study proposes a non-predictive-based ONU scheduling method designated as Active intra-ONU Scheduling with proportional guaranteed bandwidth (ASPGB) to improve the performance of LR-PONs. In the proposed method, the maximum guaranteed bandwidth of each ONU is adapted dynamically in accordance with the ratio of the ONU traffic load to the overall system load. Importantly, the proposed dynamic bandwidth allocation approach reduces the dependence of the network performance on the granted bandwidth prediction since the maximum guaranteed bandwidth determined by the Optical Line Terminal more closely approaches the actual bandwidth demand of each ONU. To solve the idle time problem arising in the event of an excess bandwidth reallocation, ASPGB is integrated with an improved early allocation (IEA) algorithm (a kind of Just-In-Time scheduling). The simulation results show that the IEA-ASPGB scheme outperforms previously published methods in terms of bandwidth utilization and average packet delay under both balanced and unbalanced traffic load conditions.