Abstract:
Time cycles in the physical layer of a passive optical network may be shared by multiple transmitting network devices (ONUs) to enable transmission of time sensitive traffic in a time sensitive manner. By allocating channels within the cyclic frame structure of the physical layer of the network, transmission of data from the ONUs to the OLT may be smoothed to enhance time dependent characteristics of the network. Where the underlying physical layer is a SONET/SDH based network, each SONET/SDH frame is divided into a given number of channels, such as 125 channels each of which is 1 nullS long. Each ONU is allocated one or more channels on each frame in which to transmit data to the OLT. The total bandwidth allocated to a given ONU is determined based on the number of channels allocated to that ONU.