Method for sub-rating an ethernet passive optical network (EPON) medium access control (MAC) based communication link

摘要

Embodiments allow for EPON MAC traffic to be sub-rated according to available bandwidth and/or transmission capacity of the physical medium. EPON MAC traffic sub-rating is performed in the PHY layer. The PHY layer performing the sub-rating may be located anywhere in the communication path supporting the end-to-end EPON MAC link. Because the sub-rating is performed in the PHY layer, the EPON MAC layer at either end of the EPON MAC link is unaware of the sub-rating being performed, and thus continues to operate as it would normally according to the IEEE standard that it implements.

主权项

1. A method for sub-rating Ethernet Passive Optical Network (EPON) Medium Access Control (MAC) traffic over a communication link, comprising:
receiving, by a physical layer (PHY) device, a first control frame having a packet queue length value from a first EPON MAC layer module; increasing the packet queue length value in the first control frame; transmitting the first control frame with the increased packet queue length value to a second EPON MAC layer module; receiving a second control frame having a transmission time slot value from the second EPON MAC layer module; reducing the transmission time slot value; and forwarding the second control frame with the reduced time slot transmission value to the first EPON MAC layer module.