Optical
point-to-multipoint
(P2MP) connectivity based on digital subcarrier multiplexing (DSCM)
has been shown as a solution for the metro-access segment that is able
to reduce capital and operational costs and support the capacity and
high dynamicity needs of future 6G services. To achieve maximum
performance, activation and deactivation of subcarriers must be done
near-real-time to provide just the capacity needed to support
the input traffic. In this paper, we investigate the
applicability of various approaches capable of supporting the
near-real-time operation requirement. Starting from the centralized
approach that can be carried out on the centralized software-defined
networking (SDN) controller, we also explore distributed approaches
that might relieve the SDN controller from near-real-time operation.
In particular, we explore the performance of deploying a multiagent
system (MAS), where intelligent agents run on top of the nodes in the
P2MP tree and communicate among them. Illustrative results show that
the distributed approaches can achieve a performance close to that of
the centralized one, while reducing communication needs. Results also
show the importance of traffic/capacity prediction to anticipate the
activation of subcarriers.