Patent ID: 8493982

Claim:
A method for discovering Optical Network Units (ONU) with different speed capabilities in an Ethernet Passive Optical Network (EPON) by an Optical Line Termination (OLT), wherein: logical links in the network are identified by Logical Link IDs (LLID); the OLT is capable of transmitting and receiving data at a 1 Gbit/s-speed (1 G) and 10 Gbit/s-speed (10 G); and the discovery process is handled in the OLT by a Multi Point Control Process (MPCP), which exchanges messages as Data Units (MPCPDU) with the ONUs; the method which comprises: associating a 10 G and a 1 G Downstream (DS) transmission channel with the ONUs; transmitting for 1 G-ONUs a Discovery GATE MPCPDU (dGATE) by the OLT; transmitting for 10 G-ONUs an extended Discovery GATE MPCPDU (eGATE) by the OLT; carrying one Discovery Window (DW) by the extended Discovery GATE MPCPDU (eGATE), if only 1 G Upstream (US) capable ONUs are present and coded in a Flags Field (FF) and an Option Field (OF); carrying two Discovery Windows (DW) by the extended Discovery GATE MPCPDU (eGATE), if only 10 G Upstream (US) capable ONUs or if 1 G and 10 G Upstream (US) capable ONUs are present and coded in a Flags Field (FF) and an Option Field (OF); responding by a 1 G-ONU within the 1-G-DW with a register request MPCPDU (REQ); responding by a 10 G-ONU or by a mixed 1 G/10 G-ONU within the 10-G-DW with an extended register request MPCPDU (eREQ); notifying the 1 G-ONU with a register MPCPDU (REG) or the 10 G capable ONU with the extended register MPCPDU (eREG) by the OLT about an allocated LLID; acknowledging the LLID with a register ACK MPCPDU (ACK) by the 1 G-ONU; acknowledging the LLID with an extended register ACK MPCPDU (eACK) by the 10 G-ONU or by the mixed 1 G/10 G-ONU; transmitting by the OLT a standard GATE MPCPDU (GATE), containing the allocated LLID and at least one upstream transmission slot (US); and starting a data transmission in US-transmission slot from the ONU to the OLT.