CIRCUIT AND PACKET INTEGRATED SWITCHING ARCHITECTURE FOR AN OPTICAL LOOP NETWORK

In recent years, an increasing number of studies have been reported re garding multimedia LANs that integrate voice, data and video communica tions. The Movable Boundary method has been suggested as a way to inte grate circuit and packet switching. However, how this can be practical ly managed, especially for multimedia LANs, is not clear. Working unde r the assumption that an optical loop network is used as a multimedia LAN, we propose Hybrid Allocation as a new Movable Boundary method. Hy brid Allocation features traffic prediction for circuit switching call s, and timeslot allocation close to the boundary of circuit and packet switching areas. Evaluations of traffic simulation and network effici ency show it to be a promising architecture for integrating circuit an d packet switching on a multimedia LAN.