Patent ID: 8346083

Claim:
A bandwidth allocation method for dynamically allocating a communication bandwidth from each of a plurality of optical subscriber units to an optical line terminal in a passive optical network in which the optical line terminal and the plurality of optical subscriber units are connected through an optical transmission line, the bandwidth allocation method comprising: a step in which the optical line terminal obtains a time average allocated bandwidth from allocated bandwidths of past predetermined number of cycles for each of the optical subscriber units, calculates a requirement threshold for each of the optical subscriber units based on a difference between the time average allocated bandwidth for each of the optical subscriber units and a target bandwidth determined for each of the optical subscriber units, and notifies a corresponding optical subscriber unit of the requirement threshold; a step in which the corresponding optical subscriber unit notifies the optical line terminal of a data amount, corresponding to data amount including data sections up to a section which makes a transmission amount maximum in a range equal or less than the notified requirement threshold as a transmission requirement; a step in which the optical line terminal notifies the corresponding optical subscriber unit of a transmission permission amount in order to permit transmission of a data amount corresponding to the notified transmission requirement; and a step in which the corresponding optical subscriber unit transmits the data amount corresponding to the transmission permission amount.