Patent ID: 8798460

Claim:
An optical access system, comprising: an optical line terminal coupled to a network; and optical network units coupled to the optical line terminal and to a plurality of user terminals, each of the optical network units being configured to: obtain a capacity of a buffer included in each of the respective optical network units and a link speed between each of the respective optical network units and one of the plurality of user terminals that is coupled to each of the respective optical network units; determine a sleep time based on the obtained capacity and the obtained link speed in a case where no communication frames are transmitted for a given period of time from any one of the plurality of user terminals and the optical line terminal; and set in a sleep state for the determined sleep time, wherein each of the respective optical network units is configured to transmit the determined sleep time to the optical line terminal, wherein the optical line terminal is configured to transmit a permission of setting in the sleep state to each of the respective optical network units after receiving the determined sleep time, wherein each of the respective optical network units is configured to be set in the sleep state after receiving the permission of setting in the sleep state from the optical line terminal, wherein each of the respective optical network units is configured to transmit the determined sleep time to the optical line terminal in a case where the communication frames transmitted from the one of the plurality of user terminals to each of the respective optical network units are not stored in the buffer included in each of the respective optical network units after the determined sleep time elapses since the setting to the sleep state, wherein the optical line terminal includes a buffer for storing the communication frames to be transmitted from the optical line terminal to the one of the plurality of user terminals, and wherein the optical line terminal is configured to transmit the permission of setting in the sleep state to each of the respective optical network units in a case where the communication frame is not stored in the buffer of the optical line terminal after receiving the determined sleep time.