Patent ID: 7376144

Claim:
A method for information transfer comprising: performing a native transfer of voice and digital data service information between a line termination (LT) and a plurality of network terminations (NT's) in a passive optical network by: the LT transmitting downstream in serially ordered frames of fixed size broadcast to all of the NT's at a fixed interval; the LT transmitting in each downstream frame, each said downstream frame divided into dynamically sized blocks, the LT transmitting in each of the blocks information of a different service type and each block being of a length that is dynamically defined according to the service type and priority associated with the respective block; the NT's transmitting upstream in serially ordered frames of fixed size, said frames being divided into serially ordered time slots, at most one NT transmitting information for at most one service type in each slot, said slots being used by NT's in dynamically sized consecutive slots for transmitting service information; the LT and the NT's exchanging management information; and the LT and the NT's natively transporting service information to each other in both the upstream and downstream directions, according to said management information exchanged between the LT and the NT's, wherein the management information exchange between the LT and NT's includes management information sent by the LT in the downstream direction and comprising messages performing the function of distributing a map matching downstream voice time slots to particular calls, according to which NT's filter voice service information.