Patent ID: 7002976

Claim:
A communication system for providing a plurality of user networks with a high speed link to a wide area network comprising: a transport network having a plurality of network nodes coupled together by one or more data communication paths, wherein at least one of said network nodes comprises an access device and at least one of said network nodes comprises a concentrator device; said access device including a plurality of router port extension functional units wherein each said router port extension functional unit is coupled to one of the user networks, said router port extension functional unit being operable to receive an upstream data packet from one of the user networks, operable to frame said received upstream data packet into a format compatible for transmission on said transport network, and operable to forward said converted upstream data packet onto at least one of said one or more data communication paths on said transport network, said router port extension functional unit also being operable to receive a downstream data packet from at least one of said one or more data communication paths on said transport network, operable to frame said received downstream data packet into a format compatible for receipt by said user network, and operable to forward said converted downstream data packet to said user network; and said concentrator device being coupled to a wide area network access device, said concentrator device being operable to receive network data packets from at least one of said data communication paths and operable to forward said received network data packets to said wide area network access device, said concentrator device also being operable to receive data packets from said wide area network access device and operable to forward said data packets from said wide area network access device to at least one of said data communication paths; wherein each of the router port extension functional units has an associated virtual port and wherein all of said virtual ports are multiplexed to a single LAN communication port.