Patent ID: 8818188

Claim:
A method performed by an emulated Optical Network Unit (ONU) platform that executes functions of a plurality of emulated ONUs to thereby enable traffic emulation in a Gigabit-capable Passive Optical Network (GPON), the GPON including an Optical Line Termination (OLT) system coupled to the emulated ONU platform, the method comprising the steps of: generating a plurality of ONU management control interface (OMCI) messages by the emulated ONU platform according to respective statistical specifications in respective profiles of the plurality of emulated ONUs, wherein the emulated ONU platform includes a plurality of ONU emulator blocks, and each of the ONU emulator blocks including circuitry to emulate multiple ones of the emulated ONUs simultaneously; generating a plurality of Physical Layer Operation, Administration and Maintenance (PLOAM) messages and a plurality of Dynamic Bandwidth Report upstream (DBRu) messages by the emulated ONU platform according to the respective profiles of the emulated ONUs; generating data traffic and control traffic according to the respective profiles of the emulated ONUs; formatting and encapsulating the OMCI messages, the PLOAM messages, the DBRu messages, the data traffic and the control traffic for upstream transmission to the OLT system according to dynamic bandwidth allocation instructions received from the OLT system; sending the OMCI messages, the PLOAM messages, the DBRu messages, the data traffic and the control traffic upstream from the emulated ONU platform to the OLT system; and receiving downstream traffic from the OLT system by the emulated ONU platform.