Patent ID: 8571058

Claim:
A terminal apparatus connecting through a splitter and a repeater with each of a first terminating apparatus and a second terminating apparatus, the terminal apparatus comprising: a memory; and a processor coupled to the memory, wherein the processor executes a transmitting procedure to transmit an optical signal at a first transmission rate to the first terminating apparatus and to transmit an optical signal at a second transmission rate to the second terminating apparatus, the second transmission rate being at least 1 gigabit per second lower than the first transmission rate, a gathering procedure to gather transmission request information from each of the first terminating apparatus and the second terminating apparatus, a dynamic bandwidth allocation procedure to allocate a transmission band for communicating with each of the first terminating apparatus and the second terminating apparatus in accordance with the gathered transmission request information, determine a size and an alignment position of a time slot in accordance with the allocated transmission band, determine a transmission start time of the time slot for each of the first terminating apparatus and the second terminating apparatus, and allocate an extinction period, only between a time slot of the optical signal with the second transmission rate and a time slot following the time slot of the optical signal with the second transmission rate, so as to stop a transmission of an optical signal, and a generating procedure to generate a control frame for notifying each of the first terminating apparatus and the second terminating apparatus of the transmission start time and the size of the time slot.