Planning, Optimization and Operation of Access and Ethernet Optical Networks for the Provisioning of High-Speed Symmetrical Services
Venue
Ph.D. Thesis, Universidad Carlos III, Madrid, Spain (2016)
Publication Year
2016
Authors
BibTeX
Abstract
Today more than ever before, service providers are under enormous pressure to
reduce operational costs while increasing business effectiveness. This often means
optimizing cur- rent infrastructure investments and implementing novel networking
technologies. Customer demand is quickly evolving away from traditional one-way
content consumption to a much more participative social network model that demands
high capacity bidirectional information flows. Ethernet-based networking technology
has become ubiquitous in both the enterprise and home broadband arenas. The
combination of simplicity and rigorous specification has permitted a degree of
integration and commoditization that other networking technologies could not
achieve. On the other hand, optical fiber has become the technology of choice in
the medium and long term in the access and metro networks, thanks to its speed,
reach and future-proof. While it seems clear that fiber is the right technology to
support emerging services in the access network, there are a large variety of
technologies available in the industry. This thesis reviews the main technologies
available today for access and metro networks, and proposes contributions about
network planning and optimization. Firstly, main innovations added to Ethernet are
analyzed, namely improvements related to scalability, OAM functionality and
forwarding capabilities, in order to permit Ethernet to assume a much larger role
in metro networks. After that, some of the Ethernet enhancements previously
discussed are applied to access networks. Specifically, physical and link-layer
information are combined in order to effectively set management procedures for
passive optical networks (PON). We propose an Integrated Troubleshooting Box (ITB)
and show its applicability in a number of realistic troubleshooting scenarios,
including failure situations involving either the feeder fibre or one of its
branches. Secondly, this thesis explores fiber access protocols available in the
industry to support high-speed symmetrical services. It compares four
Next-Generation PON protocols from a performance and economical perspective in a
real scenario, and analyzes under which conditions 1 Gb/s symmetrical services can
operate by selecting the right parameters of quality of service, oversubscription
and split ratio. Finally, a novel access network planning method is proposed to
provide 1Gb/s symmetrical services in a mixed environment of business and
residential services. In this case, a converged cost-optimized access network is
implemented, using Integer Linear Programming, which guarantees respective service
level specifications in a real scenario.
