Multi-OLT Multi-Lane PON for 5G Fronthaul and Differential Services Through Access Class Priority-Based 2D Scheduling

Optical and wireless convergence is a quest of time. The rising bandwidth demand focuses on optical technology while increasing mobile bandwidth access requires wireless connectivity. Network convergence is a must to go through the solution. Multi-optical line terminal (multi-OLT) passive optical network (PON) has gained consideration for this solution for its widespread integration aptitudes. This paper proposes a multi-OLT multi-lane PON-based access network that provides service to the fifth-generation (5G) centralized radio access network (C-RAN) fronthaul on top of the existing access services. The design follows 100 Gb/s next-generation Ethernet passive optical network (NG-EPON) standards along with an optical network unit (ONU) structure to provoke dynamic channel bonding. A novel wavelength and bandwidth allocation scheme named access class priority-based 2D scheduling (ACP-2D) for upstream traffic is also designed. Computer simulations are performed to justify the performance of the ACP-2D scheme in a mini-slot-based 5G new radio (5G NR). Four different service providers (SPs) occupy four different OLTs. The services provided by the SPs are the Internet of Things (IoT), fiber-to-the-home (FTTH), wireless sensor network (WSN), and 5G. Simulation results show that 5G fronthaul traffic is successfully transmitted (owing to the full desired throughput of 0.798) within the 3GPP delay requirement of $250~\mu $ sec while maintaining other services. For example, the maximum FTTH service jitter is achieved to be $0.26~\mu $ sec for a maximum delay of $546.94~\mu $ sec at a mini-slot of $250~\mu $ sec. Network upstream bandwidth utilization is achieved by about 99.9%, which indicates a very small amount of network overhead. This innovative work signifies that multi-OLT PON can promote acceleration on the journey from C-RAN to open RAN.