Multihop lightwave networks: a comparison of store-and-forward and hot-potato routing

A straightforward approach is found for computing the total aggregate capacity of a multihop network with hot-potato routing, and for finding the probability distribution of the number of hops taken by a representative test packet. The rows and columns of the state transition matrix used by this approach each contain, at most, two nonzero elements. The approach is valid for any symmetric network connection diagram under conditions of uniform loading. Results obtained for recirculating perfect shuffle connection diagrams show that the achievable aggregate capacity degrades relative to the capacity maximizing store-and-forward routing as the number of network nodes increases, but even for networks containing several thousand nodes, it is no worse than 25% of that for store-and-forward. Increasing the link data speed by more than a factor of four will produce, overall, a higher aggregate capacity.<<ETX>>