Highest Cost First-Based QoS Mapping Scheme for Fiber Wireless Architecture

The combination of a high-speed wireless network with passive optical network technologies has led to the evolution of a modern integrated fiber wireless (FiWi) access network. Compared to broadband wireless networks, the FiWi network offers higher bandwidth with improved reliability and reduced maintenance costs due to the passive nature of passive optical network (PON). Since the quality of service (QoS) is a baseline to deploy high-speed FiWi broadband access networks, therefore, it is essential to analyze and reduce the typical problems (e.g., bandwidth and delay) in the high-speed next-generation networks (NGANs). This study investigates the performance of a fiber wireless architecture where a 10-Gigabit-capable passive optical network (XGPON) and fifth generation of wireless local area network (WLAN) (i.e., IEEE 802.11ac) are integrated. Both technologies take benefits from each other and have pros and cons concerning the QoS demands of subscribers. The proposed work offers a very flexible QoS scheme for the different types of services of 5G WLAN and XGPON with the help of the highest cost first (HCF) algorithm, which leads to reduced upstream delays for delay-sensitive applications. The simulation results show that the HCF algorithm boosts the performance of the dynamic bandwidth assignment (DBA) scheme and results in up to 96.1%, 90.8%, and 55.5% reduced upstream (US) delays for video: VI(T2), background: BK(T3), and best effort: BE(T4) traffic in enhanced-distributed-channel-access (EDCA) mode. Compared to earlier work, the HCF and immediate allocation with the colorless grant (IACG) DBA combination results in the reduction of up to 54.8% and 53.4% mean US delays. This happens because of 50% to 65% better bandwidth assignment by the IACG DBA process due to efficient mapping by the HCF algorithm.