Patent ID: 8526818

Claim:
An optical network terminal (ONT) in a gigabit passive optical network (GPON) comprising a photoelectric converter, the ONT comprising: a demultiplexer (DEMUX) for extracting a clock from a downstream electrical signal output from the photoelectric converter and converting the electrical signal into a parallel signal; a multiplexer (MUX) for converting an upstream parallel electrical signal into a serial electrical signal using the clock extracted by the DEMUX; a medium access control (MAC) block having a protocol processing function of the GPON, wherein the MAC block services any one of at least two data rates for the upstream signal according to a user's selection, at least in part by repeatedly transmitting data destined for a receiver configured to use a first data rate of the at least two data rates; a physical (PHY) layer for transmitting a subscriber Ethernet frame extracted by the MAC block to a subscriber port; and an optical module for converting the downstream electrical signal output from the PHY layer into an optical signal and outputting the optical signal, or converting an input optical signal into an electrical signal and outputting the electrical signal to the PHY layer.