Patent ID: 8917993

Claim:
A method comprising: determining, with an optical line terminal (OLT) coupled to a plurality of optical network terminals (ONTs) that facilitate the transfer of data between a corresponding one of a plurality of customer network devices and the OLT, an amount of upstream data that is waiting at one of the plurality of ONTs to be transmitted upstream to the OLT; determining, with the OLT, an amount of downstream data that is transmitted by the OLT to the one of the plurality of ONTs; increasing the amount of upstream data determined by the OLT to be waiting at the one of the plurality of ONTs to be transmitted upstream to the OLT based on the determined amount of downstream data that is transmitted by the OLT to the one of the plurality of ONTs; after increasing the determined amount of upstream data determined by the OLT to be waiting at the one of the plurality of ONTs to be transmitted upstream to the OLT, generating an upstream grant map that grants time slots to one or more of the plurality of ONTs based on the increased amount of upstream data determined for the one of the plurality of ONTs and an amount of upstream data determined for each of remaining ones of the plurality of ONTs; and transmitting, with the OLT, the upstream grant map downstream to the plurality of ONTs.