Operation methods in an ethernet passive optical network that includes a network unit with multiple entities

摘要

A method for registration of multiple entities belonging to a specific optical network unit (ONU). In one embodiment, the multiple entity registration method comprises checking by an optical line terminal (OLT) if a registration request message received from the specific ONU belongs to a certain grant, and based on the check result, registering an entity as either a first or as an additional entity of the specific ONU. In another embodiment, the method comprises checking by an OLT of a reserved value of a flags field inside a registration request message, and based on the check result, registering an entity as either a first or as an additional entity of the specific ONU. The knowledge by an OLT that multiple entities belong to a specific ONU is used for grant optimization and packet data flow optimization.