Patent ID: 8588257

Claim:
A method for accommodating different clock frequencies in an Ethernet passive optical network (EPON), the EPON including an optical line terminal (OLT) and an optical network unit (ONU), comprising: comparing, by the ONU, an ONU clock and an OLT clock to determine whether the ONU clock is faster than the OLT clock; determining, by the ONU, a first upstream transmission window in terms of an amount of data to be included in an upstream data burst that is to be transmitted if the OLT clock were to be used for transmission of the upstream data burst during the first upstream transmission window; requesting, by the ONU, a second upstream transmission window, the second upstream transmission window being smaller than the first upstream transmission window when the ONU clock is faster than the OLT clock; and transmitting by the ONU, the upstream data burst to the OLT during the second upstream transmission window, the upstream data burst including the amount of data used in determining the first upstream transmission window.