Hybrid Optical Wireless Access Networks

This paper describes a dynamic reconfiguration algorithm for a hybrid fiber wireless network, which takes advantage of dynamic reconfiguration in WDM based optical networks to provide bandwidth on the fly. The WDM technique for optical networks allows network operators to extend the existing capacity of passive optical networks manifolds. However presently, WDM networks were used mostly in long haul backbone networks and recently have been put to use in metropolitan networks (MAN). But till now not much work has been done on use of WDM networks in MAN. We use wireless technology to solve the Last mile problem of WDM networks. Wireless networks on the other hand are always constrained by need of bandwidth and we use WDM based optical networks to provide that. So both network technologies complement each other. Our proposed approach allows providing bandwidth on demand. It also allows for service differentiation by service providers, and sharing of infrastructure by several service providers.