SUMMARYIn this paper, a packet pre-classification media access control protocol based on a carrier sense multiple access with idle detection (CSMA/ID) scheme is investigated for supporting IP packets over all-optical WDM ring networks. The purpose of the protocol is to increase throughput and to decrease the packet transmission delay of IP packets over optical networks in a metropolitan area network. This protocol avoids both packet collision and packet fragmentation. In order to improve the utilization of the network, the packets transmitted from a local area network are first pre-classified into various class queues of an access point (AP) according to their length. After checking the available space based on the wavelength received by the receivers of the AP, the packets in the queues are transmitted. An analytical model is developed to evaluate the performance of the protocol, with simulation results showing good network efficiency. The proposed network has short-term variations that introduce unfairness conditions. This problem could be overcome by assigning a quota on individual queues to allow all queues fair access.