Call for Papers

Motivation

Optical fiber networking technologies are regarded as the cornerstone of next generation communications in modern society. Within multiple critical segments of optical communication physical infrastructure, optical access networks play an instrumental role in the end-to-end broadband network connections. Next-generation optical access networks are expected to provide super-broadband services with tremendous capacity, lower latencies, enhanced reliability, and better security in order to support various ultra-high-bandwidth applications, such as cloud/edge networking, 8K video streaming services, and upcoming 3D holographic communication and digital replication of the physical world. Additionally, optical access networks play a growing role in mobile networks and will become even more prominent with 5G/6G due to its demand for extreme bandwidth, coverage, synchronization, and low latency requirements. The success of future mobile networks will not just be about new radio access technologies. The deployment of future wireless technologies will be dependent on the ability of the optical access networks seamlessly connected to the radio access networks (RANs) and edge/cloud computing resources. Combining the advantages of both optical and radio access technologies into a unified converged platform will help telecom service providers to reduce network complexity, cut operational costs, improve quality of service, allocate resources optimally across different access technologies, and serve as a springboard for new business. Many technologies are currently being developed for optical networks for convergence and access in order to increase throughput, improve energy efficiency, and simplify network design, deployment and operation. 

Topics of Interests

This Special Issue will focus on recent advances in optical networking technologies, concentrating on optical access networks and the convergence of integrated fiber and wireless access technologies. We seek original contributions in network architectures, system technologies, and dynamic resource allocation and management protocols for delivering services to residential and enterprise/business customers as well as for supporting applications in mobile backhaul, midhaul, and fronthaul network connections. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Optical metro edge and access aggregation convergence
• Convergence of optical access and mobile broadband systems for new radio access networks
• Evolution of passive optical network (PON) for 50G and 100G data rate, and/or high split ratio and extended reach
• New fiber-wireless integrated radio access network architecture design and system interface
• New use cases and standards development for next-generation PONs
• New use cases for converged optical and wireless access networks
• Future softwarization and virtualization of optical access networks
• Applications of AI/ML in performance improvement and network telemetry in optical and radio access networks
• New advancements in improving the latency, reliability, protection, and security of optical access networks
• Dynamic bandwidth allocation (DBA) algorithms and multiple media access control (MAC) mechanisms
• Software-defined access and network slicing
• PON architectures for low latency and high-capacity mesh interconnect of edge nodes
• Techno-economics of analysis of optical access enabling dense 5G and beyond deployments

Submission Guidelines

Manuscripts should conform to the standard format as indicated in the ‘Information for Authors’ section of the Paper Submission Guidelines.  All manuscripts to be considered for publication must be submitted by the deadline through Manuscript Central. Select ‘March 2022/ Next-Generation Optical Access Networks to support Super-Broadband Services and 5G/6G Mobile Networks’ from the drop-down menu of topic titles.

Important Dates

Manuscript Submission Deadline: 15 September 2021 15 October 2021 (Extended Deadline)
Initial Decision Notification: 1 November 2021
Revised Manuscript Due: 1 December 2021
Final Decision Notification: 1 January 2021
Final Manuscript Due: 15 January 2021
Publication Date: March 2022

Guest Editors

Dr. Zhensheng Jia
CableLabs, USA

Prof. Elaine Wong
University of Melbourne, Australia

Prof. Marco Ruffini
Trinity College, Ireland

Dr. Jun-ichi Kani
NTT, Japan

Prof. Junwen Zhang
Fudan University, China