Patent ID: 9680595
Date: 2017-06-13
CPC Classifications: H04B,H04J,H04L,H04Q,Y02D

Claim:
1. An optical network unit (ONU) that is used in an optical network in which one optical line terminal (OLT) performs point-to-point or point-to-multi-point communication with one or more optical network units (ONU) through an optical fiber transmission path and saves power of the optical network, the optical network unit (ONU) including: an observing unit that observes, in a first predetermined period of time, an arrival interval of frames, an instantaneous bandwidth under use of a flow, or a queue length of a queue temporarily storing the frames, and the presence or absence of traffic of one or more specific protocol or priority transferred between a user network interface (UNI) of the ONU and a service node interface (SNI) of the OLT; a stop determining unit that determines to stop partial functions of the ONU if: (a) the arrival interval of the frames observed by the observing unit is equal to or greater than a threshold value of the arrival interval of the frames; (b) the instantaneous bandwidth under use observed by the observing unit is equal to or smaller than a threshold value of the instantaneous bandwidth under use; or (c) the queue length observed by the observing unit is equal to or smaller than a threshold value of the queue length, determines not to stop the partial functions of the ONU if: (d) the arrival interval of the frames observed by the observing unit is smaller than the threshold value of the arrival interval of the frames; (e) the instantaneous bandwidth under use observed by the observing unit is greater than the threshold value of the instantaneous bandwidth under use, or (f) the queue length observed by the observing unit is greater than the threshold value of the queue length; and determines not to stop the partial functions of the ONU if: (g) the observing unit observes the traffic of the specific protocol or priority even though (a), (b), or (c) is satisfied; and a stopping unit that stops the partial functions of the ONU for a second predetermined time when the stop determining unit determines to stop the partial functions of the ONU or to maintain the ONU in an active state when the stop determining unit determines not to stop the partial functions of the ONU, and that achieves power saving of the ONU while preventing disconnection and frame transmission delay of the traffic of the specific protocol or priority.