Patent ID: 8335439

Claim:
A method of managing forward error correction in an ethernet passive optical network (EPON) which includes at least one optical network unit (ONU), comprising the steps of: by an optical line terminal (OLT): (a) monitoring communications quality from the at least one ONU, thereby determining a figure of merit of said communications; (b) upon finding said figure of merit to be insufficient, indicating to the at least one ONU that said figure of merit is insufficient only by transmitting thereafter forward error corrected (FEC) data to the at least one ONU; and (c) upon finding said figure of merit to be sufficient, indicating to the at least one ONU that said figure of merit is sufficient only by transmitting thereafter uncoded data to the at least one ONU; wherein the step of transmitting thereafter FEC data includes changing a transmission protocol and state to send FEC protected frames to the at least one ONU and wherein the step of transmitting thereafter uncoded data includes changing a transmission protocol and state to send non-FEC protected frames to the at least one ONU.