Abstract
The Manhattan Street Network (MSN) with the Clockwork Routing scheme has been proposed as a particularly suitable candidate for use in optical networks. However, without any medium access control (MAC), the success of the MSN with Clockwork Routing in optical networks would be inhibited by the destination-release protocol, since the protocol provides no guarantee of fair access or bounded traffic delay requirements of access nodes. Hence, new traffic regulation schemes providing medium access control are required to ensure fair access between network nodes and satisfy stringent quality of service (QoS) requirements of applications. This paper introduces a new scheme for medium access that supports fairness between competing access nodes while limiting the delay in the network. A ring model based on the "return-to-trail" property of the MSN is used to realise the logical behaviour of the MSN and connection services are regulated using a distributed view of the network loading.