Abstract: The invention provides a method and apparatus for downstream flow control in an (x)GPON system. First, ONU sends a DS_FlowControl_Request message to OLT, wherein the DS_FlowControl_Request message includes information of transmission inhibiting period and is used for requesting OLT to inhibit downstream transmission for a transmission inhibiting period corresponding to the information of transmission inhibiting period. After receiving the DS_FlowControl_Request message from ONU, OLT inhibits the downstream transmission for the transmission inhibiting period corresponding to the information of transmission inhibiting period based on the information of transmission inhibiting period included in the DS_FlowControl_Request message. After inhibiting the downstream transmission for the transmission inhibiting period corresponding to the information of transmission inhibiting period, OLT resumes the downstream transmission to ONU.

Abstract: The invention provides a method and apparatus for downstream flow control in an (x)GPON system. First, ONU sends a DS_FlowControl_Request message to OLT, wherein the DS_FlowControl_Request message includes information of transmission inhibiting period and is used for requesting OLT to inhibit downstream transmission for a transmission inhibiting period corresponding to the information of transmission inhibiting period. After receiving the DS_FlowControl_Request message from ONU, OLT inhibits the downstream transmission for the transmission inhibiting period corresponding to the information of transmission inhibiting period based on the information of transmission inhibiting period included in the DS_FlowControl_Request message. After inhibiting the downstream transmission for the transmission inhibiting period corresponding to the information of transmission inhibiting period, OLT resumes the downstream transmission to ONU.

Abstract: In this invention, a proxy device is introduced between control device and implementing device in a communication network, to achieve the management related to work status monitoring between control device and implementing device, so that the load of control device handling message(s) related to status monitoring. Specifically, the proxy device firstly obtains the work status information of multiple implementing devices, and reports them to the control device via one or more uplink report messages; after receiving the uplink report message(s) from the proxy device, the control device obtains the work status information of multiple implementing devices based on the above uplink report message(s). The solutions in this invention are especially applicable to device status monitoring based on heartbeat mechanism in soft switch network.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for dealing with a request from a user for leaving and zapping a multicast service channel in a network access apparatus, which supports the multicast service, are provided in this invention. A new state, i.e. unused state, is introduced to implement a slow leaving mechanism. When the last user of a multicast group leaves the group, the group will be set into the unused state instead of being deleted immediately, and a period of reserve time is set for the specific group. If there is any user requesting for joining the group within the period of reserve time, the group will be set back into the active state, otherwise the group will be deleted. This mechanism avoids frequent switching requests from the network access apparatus to the network, relieves the heavy load of the network due to the users' frequent zapping requests and hence improves the network performance.