Patent ID: 8397064

Claim:
An ONU on an EPON coordinated by an OLT, the EPON using MACsec (media access control security) according to IEEE 802.1ae, the ONU configured with: (a) a decryption engine including: (i) a DecPars module configured to extract a first pre-determined SCI (Secure Channel Identifier) from a first type short MACsec (media access control security) header packet sent from the OLT and said DecPars module further configured to extract a second pre-determined SCI from a second type short MACsec header packet sent from the OLT; (ii) a KDB (key data base) configured to fetch a first SAK (secure association key) corresponding to said first pre-determined SCI and configured to fetch a second SAK corresponding to said second pre-determined SCI; and said ONU further configured for decrypting respectively the first type and second type packets with said first and second SAKs, wherein the PI (port identifier) of the SCIs field (SCI.PI) are configured using an LLID (logical link identifier) of the ONU.