Efficient and dynamic bandwidth allocation for Non-Status Reporting Gigabit Passive Optical Networks (GPON)

Upstream dynamic bandwidth allocation (DBA) for Gigabit Passive Optical Networks (GPON) is an important design problem since the shared uplink carries many bursty streams of different QoS requirements and there are various practical system constraints on processing loads in the OLT (Optical Line Terminal) and the ONUs (Optical Network Units). We propose self-adaptive bandwidth allocation solutions, where the OLT allocates bandwidth among the ONUs in an efficient and responsive manner, and importantly, without requiring buffer status reports from ONUs. These solutions could allow design of simpler ONUs. Our first solution is based on simple estimation by the OLT of the sample gradient of the ONU buffer content and application of stochastic approximation for sequential updates of bandwidth allocations that minimize buffer contents. The second approach is a closed form solution that minimizes the sum of weighted throughput across all ONUs. We compare our solutions with DBA algorithms that require buffer status reporting and empirically demonstrate their advantages.