Optical communication system and communication bandwidth control method

A method of controlling a communication bandwidth of an optical communication system wherein a master station is coupled to a plurality of slave stations by an optical fiber network including an optical splitter, and wherein the optical fiber network further includes a reach extender transmitting and receiving between the master station and the slave stations, the method comprising the steps of:

• upon receipt of uplink signal transmission requests from the slave stations via the reach extender, determining, by the master station, based on theses transmission requests, a first data amount of an uplink signal which each of the slave stations transmits in a first cycle, and notifying the first data amount to the reach extender;
• measuring, by the reach extender, a transmission distance or a transmission time between the reach extender and each of the slave stations in advance;
• determining, by the reach extender, based on uplink signal transmission requests from the slave stations and the first data amount, a second data amount and transmission timing of an uplink signal which each of the slave stations transmits in a second cycle, and notifying, by the reach extender, these information to each of the slave stations;
• and
• transmitting, by each of the slave stations, based on the data amount and transmission timing which the reach extender determined in a plurality of the second cycles, an uplink signal with a data amount which the master station determined in the first cycle.