An optical line terminal (OLT) channel termination (CT) comprises a receiver configured to receive an upstream message which comprises a correlation tag from an optical network unit (ONU), wherein the correlation tag represents a unique number, a processor coupled to the receiver and configured to process the upstream message, and generate a downstream message based on the upstream message, wherein the downstream message comprises the correlation tag, and a transmitter coupled to the processor and configured to transmit the downstream message to the ONU.