Iterative resource pooling for bandwidth allocation in TDM-PON: Algorithm, convergence and experimental evaluation

In this paper, we propose a new dynamic bandwidth allocation technique, SLIding Cycle Time (SLICT) for TDM-PON, specifically focused on ethernet passive optical network (EPON). Based on the sliding cycle time constraint, the proposed algorithm guarantees the maximum polling interval, an essential property for delay-sensitive applications and interactive services.We then introduce an iterative resource pooling that processes bursty best-effort traffic and achieves high throughput even under non-uniform upstream traffic distribution. We prove that greedy iterative resource pooling converges to equal resource allocation exponentially fast. Extensive numerical simulations show that SLICT outperforms existing techniques in all aspects: throughput, delay, packet loss and average queue size. Finally, SLICT has been implemented on an EPON FPGA board and the performance is confirmed under real traffic.