Clean-slate design of next-generation optical access

We report the current status of our research on the clean-slate design of next-generation optical access (NGOA). We have been studying candidate architectures with a major focus on their elasticity to user demands, energy efficiency, and support of better Quality of Experience (QoE). One of the major challenges in this study is to establish a comparative analysis framework where we can assess the performances of candidate architectures in an objective and quantifiable way. In this paper we describe our efforts to meet this challenge: (1) the development of a new comparison framework based on integrated QoE and statistical hypothesis testing and (2) the implementation of a virtual test bed capturing important aspects from physical layer to application layer to end-user behaviour governing traffic generation. The comparison framework and the virtual test bed will provide researchers a sound basis and useful tools for comparative analysis in the clean-slate design of NGOA.