As shown in Fig. 1, if a mesh client a would like to communicate with mesh client b, traffic will be routed through the multi-hop wireless path in WMNs. However, in FiWi networks, such traffic can be routed from mesh client a to its nearest ONU, which then sends the traffic to the OLT, the OLT then broadcasts the traffic back to ONUs, the ONU closest to mesh client b can then send the traffic to b.
Such a wirelessoptical- wireless communication for peer-to-peer traffic in FiWi networks can bring following advantages: