Optimization and Deployment of Survivable Fiber-Wireless (FiWi) Access Networks with Integrated Small Cell and WiFi

Abstract

Fiber-Wireless (FiWi) access network as a small cell backhaul is now becoming a promising architecture to satisfy the rapid growth of demand for mobile data traffic. With increasing amount of network traffic, the failure of network components such as distribution fiber link failure may lead to unpredictable service outages. The network survivability through protection and restoration has become a critical requirement. Thus, in this paper, we explore the protection mechanism for small cells by integrating WiFi and rerouting of data traffic over WiFi to offer some restoration of backhaul capacity. Using this architecture, we propose a novel method to optimize the deployment and maximize the coverage of survivable FiWi access network, with appropriate constraints from connectivity, survivability, capacity and delay perspectives. Our simulation results show the successful reconfiguration of survivable FiWi access networks with integrated small cell and WiFi under different simulated network failure scenarios and we demonstrate feasibility of the proposed optimization method.