Patent ID: 7835381
Filing Date: 2010-11-16
Classification: H04J,H04L,H04M

Abstract:
1. A method for providing point to multi-point communication, comprising: associating a plurality of channels to a plurality of endpoint nodes of a digital subscriber line, each channel associated with an endpoint node; associating a plurality of channel criteria to the plurality of endpoint nodes, each channel criterion associated with an endpoint node; weighting an allocation of channels to the plurality of endpoint nodes according to the service requirements of each endpoint node; broadcasting, independently of a subscriber gateway, a plurality of downstream Ethernet packets from a headend node to the plurality of endpoint nodes using the plurality of channels, each packet having an endpoint identifier, each endpoint node configured to: accept a downstream packet if the endpoint identifier of the downstream packet corresponds to the endpoint node; and discard the downstream packet if the endpoint identifier does not correspond to the endpoint node; sending an enable signal to the endpoint nodes; receiving an upstream Ethernet packet from each endpoint node communicated by a transmitter gate gated in response to the enable signal; multiplexing the upstream packets according to the channel criteria; saving a configuration state corresponding to a first endpoint node of the plurality of endpoint nodes; saving a state of an equalizer function corresponding to the first endpoint node; and communicating with the first endpoint node according to the configuration state and the state of the equalizer function.