Internet protocol multicast on passive optical networks

A system for implementing Internet Protocol (IP) multicast via a passive optical network (PON) comprising:

• an upstream edge router;
• an optical line terminal (OLT) device operatively coupled to the upstream edge router;
• a customer premises equipment (CPE) device;
• an optical network terminal (ONT) device operatively coupled to the CPE device;
• and
• a optical distribution network (ODN) optically coupling the OLT device to the ONT device,
• wherein the upstream edge router is configured to:
• receive Internet group multicast protocol (IGMP) messages from the CPE device via the ONT device, the ODN, and the OLT device;
• identify multicast information associated with the IGMP messages,
• wherein the multicast information includes at least multicast group information and customer identification information;
• transmit the multicast information to the OLT device;
• and
• transmit layer 2 traffic to the OLT device;
• wherein the OLT device is configured to:
• receive the multicast information from the edge router;
• store the multicast information in a multicast state table;
• receive the layer 2 traffic from the edge router;
• extract multicast addressing information from the layer 2 traffic;
• determine whether the multicast addressing information matches the multicast group information stored in the multicast state table;
• and
• forward the layer 2 traffic to the CPE device on at least one PON interface in the OLT device corresponding to the customer identification information that is associated with the stored multicast group information when the multicast addressing information matches the multicast group information stored in the multicast state table.

A computer-readable memory device having stored thereon sequences of instructions which, when executed by at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to:

• store multicast information associated with upstream IGMP messages from CPE devices;
• wherein the multicast information includes at least multicast group information and customer identification information corresponding to the CPE devices;
• receive downstream layer 2 traffic;
• extract multicast addressing information from the layer 2 traffic;
• determine whether the multicast addressing information matches the stored multicast group information;
• and
• forward the layer 2 traffic to the CPE device on at least one PON interface corresponding to the customer identification information that is associated with the stored multicast group information when the multicast addressing information matches the multicast group information stored in the multicast state table.