Convergence of Ethernet PON and IEEE 802.16 Broadband Access Networks and Its QoS-Aware Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation Scheme

IEEE 802.16 and Ethernet Passive Optical Network (EPON) are two promising broadband access technologies for high-capacity wireless access networks and wired access networks, respectively. They each can be deployed to facilitate connection between the end users and the Internet but each of them suffers from some drawbacks if operating separately. To combine the bandwidth advantage of optical networks with the mobility feature of wireless communications, the authors propose a convergence of EPON and 802.16 networks in this paper. First, this paper starts with presenting the converged network architecture and especially the concept of Virtual ONU-BS (VOB).