Patent ID: 8477650

Claim:
A power manager for a passive optical network, comprising: a network statistics collector, for collecting data regarding incoming and outgoing data frames transmitted to each optical network unit (ONU) in a passive optical network (PON) comprising a plurality of ONUs on the downstream side of the PON, wherein each ONU can be in at least a sleep state and an active state, and wherein the PON transmits data in packets of data frames; a buffer for storing downstream data frames for each ONU while the ONU is in the sleep state; an activity detector for processing the data collected by said network statistics collector to generate upstream and downstream data rates for each ONU and gaps between upstream and downstream data frames transmitted to each ONU; and a protocol manager comprising a plurality of state machines for the respective plurality of ONUs, wherein each state machine governs state transition of its respective ONU to the sleep state when said activity detector indicates a low activity level for the ONU, and to the active state when said activity detector indicates a high level of activity for the ONU.