Method for managing service bandwidth by customer port and EPON system using the same

• US 7,733,780 B2
• Filed: 12/07/2006
• Issued: 06/08/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/07/2005
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
• Original Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
• Inventors: Kim, Jung Hak, Kim, Bong Tae, Kwon, Yool, Yoo, Tae Whan, Lee, Hoon
• Primary Examiner(s): Cho; Hong
• Assistant Examiner(s): Choi; Eunsook
• Application Number:
  US11/634,985
• Publication Number:
  US 20070127487A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,279 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 370/235
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 3/1694 Allocation of channels in TDM/TDMA networks, e.g. distributed multiplexers Passive Optical Networks H04Q11/0062
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0896 Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5003 Managing SLA; Interaction between SLA and QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5022 by giving priorities, e.g. assigning classes of service
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5067 Customer-centric QoS measurements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/35 involving non-standard use of addresses for implementing network functionalities, e.g. coding subscription information within the address or functional addressing, i.e. assigning an address to a function
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/50 Address allocation

Abstract

A method for managing a service bandwidth by a customer port and an EPON system using the same are provided. In order to manage the service bandwidth by a customer, ONU and ONT allocate a service class according to a combination of information about a customer that receives a service, and a service type and a service priority of a service provided to a customer, allocate a bandwidth according to each service class and control a uplink bandwidth or a downlink bandwidth according to a service class. Also, a system manger collects information about a service provider, a service provided from a service provider, a customer that receives a service, and information for classifying a service. After collecting, the system manager provides the collected information to the ONU and the OLT.

Claims

1. An optical network unit (ONU) of an Ethernet based passive optical network (EPON) system, comprising:

a customer identification tag tagging unit for finding a customer identifier for an uplink data packet to be transmitted to an optical line terminal (OLT) among customer identifiers allocated by a customer, and inserting the found customer identifier as a customer identification tag;

a service classification unit for finding a service identifier of the uplink data packet among service identifiers allocated by a service type by classifying a service type and feature of the uplink data packet;

a service identification tag tagging unit for inserting the found service identifier from the service classification unit into the uplink data packet as a service identification tag;

a bandwidth control unit for identifying a service class according to the customer identifier and the service identifier of the uplink data packet, and controlling a service bandwidth according to the identified service class; and

a link control unit for transmitting the uplink data packet to an optical line terminal (OLT) in response to the control of the bandwidth control unit;

wherein the customer identification tag tagging unit includes a mapping table composed of a customer access port field and a customer identifier field, and finds a customer identifier corresponding to a customer access port where a corresponding uplink data packet is input.

2. The ONU of claim 1, further comprising:

a customer identification tag detagging unit for removing a customer identification tag from a downlink data packet transferred from an optical line terminal (OLT) through the link control unit; and

a service identification tag detagging unit for removing a service identification tag from the downlink data packet and transferring the downlink data packet to a customer.

3. The ONU of claim 1, wherein the service classification unit further searches a service priority by a service type and a service feature for a service of an uplink data packet, and wherein the service identification tag tagging unit inserts a service priority with the service identifier into an uplink data packet as a service identification tag.

4. The ONU of claim 3, wherein the bandwidth control unit includes a mapping table in a form of a customer identifier field, a service identifier field, a service priority field, and a service class field.

5. The ONU of claim 1, wherein the service classification unit includes a mapping table including more than two fields of a previous-setting communication protocol information field, a customer identifier field, a service identification field and a service priority field.

6. The ONU of claim 1, wherein the bandwidth control unit includes a bandwidth rule table that describes a bandwidth control parameter according to a service class, and controls a bandwidth according to a service class using the bandwidth control parameter described in the bandwidth rule table.

7. The ONU of claim 6, wherein the bandwidth control parameter includes more than one of information about a service class based bandwidth measuring and processing, allowable bandwidths set according to corresponding service classes, and information about measured bandwidths of service classes.

8. The ONU of claim 6, wherein the bandwidth control unit compares a previously-measured bandwidth of a service class of an uplink data packet, which is measured before the uplink data packet is transferred, and an allowable bandwidth of a corresponding service class, and drops the corresponding data packet if the previously-measured bandwidth exceeds the allowable bandwidth, or transmits the corresponding uplink data packet if the previously-measured bandwidth does not exceed the allowable bandwidth.

9. The ONU of claim 6, wherein the bandwidth control unit prepares queue buffers distinguished by combinations of the customer identifier and the service priority, stores the uplink data packet to a corresponding queue buffer according to a combination of a customer identifier and a service priority, and schedules the queue buffers according to the service priority.

10. An optical line terminal (OLT) of an Ethernet based optical passive network (EPON) system, comprising:

a customer information lookup table for storing customer identifiers allocated by a media access control (MAC) address that is addresses of physical mediums connected to an optical network unit (ONU);

a customer identification tag tagging unit for finding a corresponding customer identifier from the customer information lookup table using a destination MAC address of a downlink data packet to be transmitted to an optical network unit (ONU) and inserting the found customer identifier into the downlink data packet as a customer identification tag;

a service classification unit for finding a service identifier of the downlink data packet among service identifiers allocated by a service type by classifying a service type of the downlink data packet;

a service identification tag tagging unit for inserting the service identifier provided from the service classification unit into the downlink data packet as a service identification tag;

a bandwidth control unit for identifying a service class according to a combination of the customer identifier and the service identifier included in the downlink data packet, and controlling a service bandwidth according to the identified service class;

a customer information extracting unit for extracting a source MAC address and a customer identifier from an uplink data packet received through the link control unit, and updating the customer information lookup table using the extracted MAC address and customer identifier; and

a link control unit for transmitting the downlink data packet to an optical line terminal (OLT) in response to the control of the bandwidth control unit by supporting an Ethernet based packet transmission with the customer terminal.

11. The OLT of claim 10, further comprising:

a customer identification tag detagging unit for removing a customer identification tag from an uplink data packet transferred from an optical network unit (ONU) through the link control unit; and

a service identification tag detagging unit for removing a service identification tag from the uplink data packet.

12. The OLT of claim 10, wherein the service classification unit further searches a service priority by a service type and a service feature for a service of an uplink data packet, and

wherein the service identification tag tagging unit inserts a service priority with the service identifier into an uplink data packet as a service identification tag.

13. The OLT of claim 12, wherein the service classification unit includes a mapping table including more than two fields of a previous-setting communication protocol information field, a customer identifier field, a service identification field and a service priority field.

14. The OLT of claim 10, wherein the bandwidth control unit includes a bandwidth rule table that describes a bandwidth control parameter according to a service class, and controls a bandwidth according to a service class using the bandwidth control parameter described in the bandwidth rule table.

15. The OLT of claim 14, wherein the bandwidth control parameter includes more than one of information about a service class based bandwidth measuring and processing, allowable bandwidths set according to corresponding service classes, and information about measured bandwidths of service classes.

16. The OLT of claim 15, wherein the bandwidth control unit compares a previously-measured bandwidth of a service class of a downlink data packet, which is measured before the uplink data packet is transferred, and an allowable bandwidth of a corresponding service class, and drops the corresponding data packet if the previously-measured bandwidth exceeds the allowable bandwidth, or transmits the corresponding downlink data packet if the previously-measured bandwidth does not exceed the allowable bandwidth.

17. The OLT of claim 16, wherein the bandwidth control unit prepares queue buffers distinguished by combinations of the customer identifier and the service priority, stores the uplink data packet to a corresponding queue buffer according to a combination of a customer identifier and a service priority, and schedules the queue buffers according to the service priority.

18. An Ethernet based passive optical network (EPON) system comprising:

more than one of optical network units (ONU) for allocating a service class according to a combination of information about a customer that receives a service, and a service type and a service priority of a service provided to a customer, allocating a bandwidth according to each service class and controlling a uplink bandwidth according to a service class;

an optical line terminal for allocating a service class according to a combination of information about a customer that receives a service, and a service type and a service priority of a service provided to a customer, allocating a bandwidth according to each service class and controlling a downlink bandwidth according to a service class; and

a system manager for collecting information about a service provider, a service provided from a service provider, a customer that receives a service, and information for classifying a service, and providing the collected information to the ONU and the OLT;

wherein the ONU and the ONT set an allowable bandwidth by a service class and control data packet transmission to be sustained within the allowable bandwidth.

19. The EPON system of claim 18, wherein the ONU and the ONT include a plurality of queue buffers which are distinguished by a combination of customers and a service priority, store a data packet into a queue buffer corresponding to a combination of a customer and a service priority of the data packet, and schedules the queue buffers according to a priority.

20. The EPON system of claim 19, wherein the ONU identifies a customer using a customer access port.

21. The EPON system of claim 19, wherein the OLT identifies a customer using a MAC address of a physical medium connected to an ONU.