Patent ID: 8818192

Claim:
An optical communications system, comprising: a plurality of customer premises equipment (CPE) each having a reverse power supply and each connected to a twisted wire pair; each CPE configured to transmit and receive data and provide power over the twisted wire pair; and an optical network unit (ONU) comprising: a switch including a plurality of communication ports that are each connected to a corresponding twisted wire pair and configured to provide downstream communications data service from a central office to a corresponding CPE over the corresponding twisted wire pair; and a power management circuit connected to the communication ports, the power management circuit including: and a reverse power detector that is configured to detect a reverse power status of operating power provided by each reverse power supply at each communication port, wherein: the switch is configured to activate and de-activate the downstream communications on each communication port based on the reverse power status of that communication port, wherein the power management circuit is configured to activate the downstream communications on a communication port having a valid reverse power status and de-activate the downstream communications on a communication port having an invalid reverse power status.