Downlink packet scheduling and resource allocation in EPON WiMAX hybrid access networks

Multimedia applications over the Internet, such as IPTV and video-on-demand, have become fast growing applications in recent years. Such applications have stringent quality of services (QoS) constraints in terms of bandwidth, delay, and packet loss. As a consequence, broadband access networks play an important role for multimedia applications. There are two emerging technologies offering both high bandwidth and QoS support, namely Ethernet Passive Optical Network (EPON) and Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX). By integrating these two technologies, EPON-WiMAX integrated network can: (1) provide broadband access, (2) support mobile users, and (3) decrease network planning cost and operating cost. Thus, EPON-WiMAX integrated network is an ideal choice for multimedia applications with ubiquitous access. Although EPON-WiMAX integrated network has received growing attentions, however, most of previous works focus on the scheduling and bandwidth allocation in the upstream direction. Therefore, in this paper, we investigate the downlink scheduling and bandwidth allocation problem in EPON-WiMAX integrated networks. The objective of the study is to maximize the system throughput and guarantee the (QoS) so that the requirements of multimedia applications can be fulfilled. We proposed a two-stage downlink packet scheduling and resource allocation mechanism collaborating with application layer forward error correction (AL-FEC). We demonstrated the performance of our approach via simulations. Our simulation results indicated that the proposed mechanism increased the system throughput significantly, especially when AL-FEC is adopted.