Scheduling for TWDM-EPON-Based Fronthaul Without a Dedicated Registration Wavelength

2026-01-02

arXiv.org

AI Summary

This work addresses the challenge of meeting the stringent latency and jitter requirements of eCPRI traffic in traditional EPON-based fronthaul, where data transmission is interrupted during ONU registration, and the ITU-T-recommended dedicated registration wavelength approach compromises bandwidth efficiency. To overcome these limitations, the paper proposes a novel scheduling framework for TWDM-EPON that enables concurrent periodic registration and data transmission without requiring an additional dedicated registration wavelength. This approach is the first to simultaneously satisfy eCPRI latency and jitter constraints while improving bandwidth utilization, all without relying on a dedicated wavelength. Experimental results demonstrate that, under identical wavelength resources, the proposed scheme supports up to 71% more radio units (RUs) than the baseline, significantly enhancing system scalability.

Technology Category

• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Scheduling
• Constraint Satisfaction and Optimization: Distributed CSP/Optimization
• Search and Optimization: Distributed Search

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Energy management for devices in mobile Web and WoT environments
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Incentives in network design for Web infrastructures and ecosystems
• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements

Abstract

The adoption of Centralized Radio Access Network (C-RAN) architectures requires fronthaul systems capable of carrying large volumes of radio data while meeting stringent delay and jitter requirements. Ethernet Passive Optical Networks (EPONs) have emerged as a promising fronthaul solution due to their cost efficiency and compatibility with existing infrastructure. However, the traditional registration process for EPON systems halts the ongoing data transmissions during the registration period, thereby violating the enhanced Common Public Radio Interface (eCPRI) delay and jitter requirements. This limitation has been acknowledged by the ITU-T, which recommends the use of a dedicated wavelength channel for registration, leading to inefficient bandwidth utilization. In this paper, we propose a novel scheduling framework for a Time and Wavelength Division Multiplexed (TWDM) EPON-based fronthaul that enables periodic registration without wasting an additional wavelength channel. Performance evaluation demonstrates that the proposed method achieves up to a 71\% increase in the number of Radio Units (RUs) supported for a given number of wavelength channels, compared to a baseline scheme employing a dedicated registration wavelength.

Problem

• TWDM-EPON
• fronthaul
• registration
• wavelength allocation
• delay and jitter

Innovation

• TWDM-EPON
• fronthaul scheduling
• periodic registration
• wavelength efficiency
• C-RAN