QoS-Aware Reliable Architecture for Broadband Fiber-Wireless Access Networks

In the era of continuous traffic demands, failure of fiber-wireless (FiWi) access network components, such as optical network unit (ONU), access point (AP), or fiber links, compromises the user connectivity and leads to enormous traffic loss. In this article, we propose a novel strategy for FiWi network planning to ensure reliability and survivability of the network. Moreover, our proposed FiWi planning strategy satisfies the required quality of service (QoS) to the users even in the case of failures. It has been shown that by deploying the proposed network framework, user services like received signal strength, throughput, delay, etc., are not significantly affected even when there is a failure. The position of backup ONU-AP is optimized in the FiWi network using a stochastic optimization algorithm. Furthermore, we compare different scenarios wherein backup ONU-AP is equipped with varying antenna configurations, such as omnidirectional antenna, sector antenna, and point-to-point (P2P) link to provide the required services to the users. Simulation results show that the P2P solution offers better services compared to sector or omnidirectional antenna configurations. Moreover, results demonstrate that the proposed survivable FiWi network can be successfully deployed without compromising the QoS requirement of the users. In addition, the article also provides reliability of the proposed survivable FiWi network.