Patent ID: 7502563

Claim:
A central office side apparatus connected to a plurality of subscriber connection apparatuses through a splitter and communicating with each of said subscriber connection apparatuses using an optical signal having a wavelength different for each subscriber connection apparatus, comprising: a wavelength multiplexing and demultiplexing unit for demultiplexing a wavelength multiplexed optical signal inputted from said splitter into a plurality of upstream optical signals for each wavelength and multiplexing a plurality of downstream optical signals having different wavelength into a wavelength multiplexed optical signal to output to said splitter; a plurality of interface units each for receiving one of said plurality of upstream optical signals having different wavelength demultiplexed by said wavelength multiplexing and demultiplexing unit and for transmitting to the wavelength multiplexing and demultiplexing unit a downstream optical signal having different wavelength to each other; a control unit for allocating as a first wavelength and a second wavelength, in response to a first message for requesting allocation of wavelength which was received from one of said subscriber connection apparatuses, a wavelength of an upstream optical signal to be received by one of said plurality of interface units and a wavelength to be transmitted from the interface unit, respectively, and notifying the subscriber connection apparatus of the first and second wavelengths by a second message; and a memory unit for storing usage statuses of wavelengths for each pair of an upstream optical signal wavelength and a downstream optical signal wavelength to be received and transmitted by each of said interface units, wherein: said control unit allocates, when said first message was received, a pair of wavelengths in an idle state as said first and second wavelengths to the subscriber connection apparatus having transmitted the first message, and changes the status of the pair of wavelengths from an idle state to a use state in said memory unit; and said control unit transmits to said subscriber connection apparatus a third message for determining whether the subscriber connection apparatus is in an active state, and changes the status of the pair of wavelengths allocated to the subscriber connection apparatus from use state to idle state in said memory unit when a response to said third message was not received within a predetermined time.