Patent ID: 7428385
Filing Date: 2008-09-23
Classification: H04H,H04J,H04L,H04N

Abstract:
1. An Ethernet passive optical network (E-PON) comprising: an optical line terminal (OLT) being configured for time division multiplexing, into respective frames, signals with communication data, said signals to be multiplexed comprising broadcast and video signals and being obtained by performing a switching operation with respect to a plurality of digital broadcast and/or digital video data for downstream delivery to at least one of multiple users of the E-PON, said communication data to be multiplexed being delivered to the network through an Interact protocol network, said performing being carried out according to selection information delivered from one or more said multiple users; a plurality of optical network terminals (ONTs) configured for outputting broadcast and/or video information included in a time-slot assigned for each optical network terminal and transmitting to each ONT user communication signals pertaining to respective users of multiple ones of the plural ONTs, by receiving and opto-electrically converting optical signals from the OLT and performing by frame, time-slot demultiplexing of the opto-electrically converted optical signals, and for receiving communication signal and broadcast/video selection information delivered from at least one user of the plurality so as to output said selection information to the OLT; and an optical splitter for splitting a signal delivered from the OLT into signals for the ONTs and for combining signals delivered from the ONTs into a signal for transmission to the OLT; wherein one frame obtained by multiplexing the broadcast/video signal and the communication signal is divided into a predetermined number of time-slots, and each time-slot includes a broadcast/video sub time slot including a broadcast and/or video signal and an Ethernet sub time-slot including a communication signal; wherein the ONTs receives selection information regarding whether or not each one of the respective users is watching/listening to broadcast/video based on selection information, and transmits said selection information to said OLT, and wherein said OLT transmits notification to a particular ONT that Ethernet communication data is transmitted via the assigned time-slot for broadcast/video of at least one respective user who is not watching/listening to the broad cast/video; the particular ONT detects and processes the notification received from the OLT, and separates the communication data from the broadcast/video based on the notification information.