Method and apparatus of delivering upstream data in ethernet passive optical network over coaxial network
AssigneeFuturewei Technologies, Inc.
InventorsLiming Fang, Jim Chen, Li Zhang
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An apparatus for interconnecting a fiber-optic network and a coax network comprising a coax line terminal (CLT) configured to couple to an optical line terminal (OLT) at the fiber-optic network and a plurality of coax network units (CNUs) at the coax network and to cache data received from the CNUs and forward the cached data to the OLT upon receiving a message from the OLT that assigns a transmission cycle for a specified CNU, wherein the CLT forwards the cached data to the OLT upon receiving the message regardless of whether the cached data corresponds to the specified CNU.
Claims20
An apparatus for bridging an optical network and an electrical network, comprising:
- a radio frequency interface configured to couple to a first coaxial network unit (CNU) and a second CNU via the electrical network;
- a network side interface configured to couple to an optical line terminal (OLT) via the optical network;
- a memory;
- and
- a processor coupled to the memory, the network side interface, and the radio frequency interface, wherein the processor is configured to:
- receive a second CNU packet from the second CNU via the radio frequency interface;
- queue the second CNU packet in the memory;
- receive a first upstream scheduling message from the OLT via the network side interface, wherein the first upstream scheduling message assigns an optical transmission time window for the first CNU, but not the second CNU;
- and
- send the second CNU packet to the OLT during the optical transmission time window for the first CNU.
A method for connecting an electrical network to an optical network, comprising:
- receiving an optical line terminal (OLT) transmission schedule, wherein the OLT transmission schedule comprises an optical transmission timeslot for a first coaxial network unit (CNU) packet, but not a second CNU packet;
- receiving the second CNU packet from a second CNU;
- scheduling an optical transmission time for the second CNU, wherein the optical transmission time for the second CNU is the same as the optical transmission timeslot for the first CNU;
- and
- transmitting, via the optical network, the second CNU packet to the OLT at the optical transmission time.
An apparatus comprising:
- a processor configured to:
- allocate a first upstream optical transmission window for a first Coaxial Network Unit (CNU) in a hybrid fiber coaxial network, but not for a second CNU in the hybrid fiber coaxial network;
- and
- generate a first upstream scheduling message comprising the first upstream optical transmission window specified for the first CNU;
- an optical transmitter coupled to the processor and configured to transmit the first upstream scheduling message via the hybrid fiber coaxial network;
- and
- an optical receiver coupled to the processor and configured to receive a second data packet in the first upstream optical transmission window, wherein the second data packet is associated with the second CNU, and wherein the second CNU is different from the first CNU.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.