Patent ID: 8311412

Claim:
A remote CMTS fiber node (CMRTS) system for a Hybrid Fiber Cable (HFC) network, comprising: a first optical to RF (radio frequency) conversion device that directly converts a first set of RF modulated optical fiber signals to a first set of CATV RF signals; at least one QAM modulator device capable of encoding selected portions of digitally encoded second optical fiber signals into a second set of RF QAM waveforms; at least one software controllable switch that can be remotely directed to select at least some of said second optical fiber signals (selected second optical signals) and direct said at least one QAM modulator device to encode said selected second optical signals into said second set of RF QAM waveforms at a selected set of frequencies (remotely generated QAM signals); at least one remotely software controllable RF packet processor capable of detecting upstream data carried by CATV RF upstream signals generated by at least one cable modem, and digitally repackaging and said upstream data and retransmitting said upstream data as a third upstream digital optical fiber signal; wherein said at least one software controllable switch and/or said software controllable RF packet processor are capable of being remotely configured by software to implement additional non-DOCSIS functionality, a full set of DOCSIS functionality, or a subset of the standard DOCSIS upstream and downstream functions; in which the functioning of said at least one software controllable switch and the functioning of said at least one remotely software controllable RF packet processor are controlled by a remote virtual shelf manager system; and in which the virtual shelf manager system comprises a device configuration database with at least CMRTS identifier fields, cable modem identification data fields, the privileges of users associated with said cable modem identification fields (user privilege fields), available DOCSIS channels, available IP addresses, instructions to configure said at least one software controllable switch, and instructions to configure said remotely software controllable RF packet processor; at least one processor; and hardware and software capable of sending and receiving data packets to and from a plurality of remote CMRTS units.