Disclosed is a method for operating a wavelength-division-multiplexed passive optical network (WDM-PON) including an optical line terminal (OLT) and a plurality of optical network units (ONUs), each of which is connected to the OLT and communicates with the OLT. The method comprises the steps of transmitting a first control channel including allocation information of downstream data channels and allocation information of time slots for the downstream data channels to each of the plurality of ONUs; and transmitting downstream data to the plurality of ONUs using their associated downstream data channels, each having at least one time slot, based on the information included in the first control channel.