Toward Best-eeort Services over Wdm Networks with Fair Access and Minimum Bandwidth Guarantee 1

Most existing wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) networks employ circuit switching, typically with one session having exclusive use of one entire wavelength. Consequently they are not suitable for data applications involving bursty traac patterns. The All-Optical Network (AON) Consortium has developed an all-optical LAN/MAN testbed which provides time-slotted WDM service 1]. In this paper, we explore extensions of this service to achieve ne-grained statistical multiplexing with diierent virtual circuits time-sharing the wavelengths in a fair manner. We develop a very fast, best-eeort time-slotted WDM network protocol with very good fairness and throughput characteristics. As an additional design feature, our protocol supports the assignment of guaranteed bandwidths (GBW) to selected sessions. This feature acts as a rst step towards supporting integrated services at the optical layer in WDM networks.