Patent ID: 8630540

Claim:
A method for transporting DOCSIS information over a passive optical network (PON), comprising: identifying an optical network unit (ONU) associated with a customer premise equipment (CPE) device that is attempting to register with a cable modem termination system (CMTS), wherein the CPE device interfaces with the PON via the ONU and the CMTS interfaces with the PON via an optical line terminal (OLT); sending dynamic host control protocol (DHCP) discovery and request messages to a DHCP server, wherein the media access control (MAC) address of the optical network unit associated with the customer premise device attempting to register is used in a client address field in the discovery and request messages; and sending a reply message from the DHCP server that contains internet protocol (IP) configuration information based on the MAC address of the optical network unit associated with the CPE device attempting to register; and after obtaining an IP address from the reply message, downloading a configuration file from a TFTP server to the CMTS using the IP address for the ONU contained in the reply message as the address of a translation agent.