Patent ID: 9602196
Date: 2017-03-21
CPC Classifications: H04B,H04L,H04Q

Claim:
1. A method in an Optical Line Terminal (OLT) device for transmitting a flow control message to one or more Optical Network Unit/Terminal (ONU/T) devices in a Passive Optical Network (PON) access network, wherein the OLT device is configured to receive alarm and/or Attribute Value Change (AVC) messages from the one or more ONU/T devices and to temporarily store the alarm and/or AVC messages in a message queue, the method comprising: detecting from which ONU/T device(s) the alarm and/or AVC messages in the message queue originated; generating the flow control message indicating to stop transmitting the alarm and/or AVC messages to the OLT device, when a number of alarm and/or AVC messages in the message queue exceeds a first threshold, wherein the flow control message indicates at least one of a lower limit of a period of time, an upper limit of the period of time, and both the lower and the upper limit of the period of time for which the ONU/T device(s), from which the alarm and/or AVC messages originated, is to stop transmitting the alarm and/or AVC messages to the OLT device; and transmitting the flow control message only to the ONU/T device(s) from which the alarm and/or AVC messages originated.