Vol. 46, Issue 3, pp. 421-433 (2016)

Abstract

Passive optical networks are widely used as a promising solution for future access networks. Currently, the bandwidth is still increasing which means the current copper networks are not able to transfer new services such as 4K video, live streaming, etc. In other words, they reached their capacity limit. The passive optical networks rely on point-to-multipoint technology. That means each customer uses a share medium by time slots. Each time slot exactly specifies who and when is able to transfer data. In general, this control mechanism is implemented in the optical network unit by worst transmission convergence layer. On the other hand, there are cases when the optical network unit (it is called rogue optical network unit) does not follow instructions provided by the optical line termination, for example, if an attacker modifies a firmware of the end unit and/or when the control protocol is not loaded properly inside optical network unit. In worst case, the optical network unit transmits data in a continual mode (other optical network units cannot send data). The standard defines finding of the rogue optical network unit but it does not specify how the rogue optical network unit should be allocated because the frames of the rogue optical network unit do not contain the proper parameters. We realized a measurement in a real network with the rogue optical network unit and then we analyzed the captured data. A new algorithm for the rogue optical network unit allocation is presented. We do not consider any modification of the transmission convergence layer in gigabit passive optical networks.