A system in an Optical Line Terminal (OLT) to dynamically manage polling rates in a passive optical network is provided herein. The system includes a Media Access Control (MAC) unit that is configured to receive a first message from an Optical Network Unit (ONU). The first message includes a status of an upstream queue of the ONU. The system includes a traffic monitor unit coupled to the MAC unit and is configured to receive the first message from the MAC unit and place the upstream queue of the ONU in an inactive mode if the status of the upstream queue indicates that the upstream queue is empty.