Patent ID: 8687976

Claim:
A network system comprising: an access device comprising an optical interface module that outputs a plurality of pairs of optical communication signals, each of the pairs of optical communication signals comprising a modulated optical transmit signal and an unmodulated optical receive signal, each of the pairs of optical communication signals having a different wavelength; and a customer premise equipment (CPE) comprising an optical interface module to receive the modulated optical transmit signal and the unmodulated optical receive signal for any of the plurality of pairs of optical communication signals, wherein the optical interface module includes a receive module to demodulate the modulated optical transmit signal into inbound symbols and a transmit module having an optical modulator and reflective optics to modulate the unmodulated optical receive signal in accordance with a data signal and reflect a modulated optical receive signal to communicate outbound data symbols to the access device, wherein the access device comprises a plurality of schedulers, each of the schedulers corresponding to a different set of one or more CPEs, and wherein each of the schedulers schedules, for a respective one of the pairs of optical communication signals, downstream communication to the respective set of CPEs by the modulated optical transmit signal and upstream communication from the respective set of CPEs by the unmodulated optical receive signal.