Patent ID: 7027459

Claim:
A transmission line terminating apparatus comprising a central processing unit responsible for supervisory control and communication control of the entire apparatus, a single packet processing IC connected to the central processing unit, and a plurality of printed circuit boards connected in a star configuration with the packet processing IC at the center thereof, wherein each of the plurality of printed circuit boards is connected to the packet processing IC by a separate high-speed supervisory control line having a sufficient transmission capacity to transfer therethrough transparent information and alarm transfer information as well as information from the central processing unit in packet form, and the transparent information and the alarm transfer information are communicated between the printed circuit boards via the separate high-speed supervisory control line and via the packet processing IC, with provisions made for the packet processing IC to detect a destination from packet information received from an originating printed circuit board and transmit the packet information to a terminating printed circuit board corresponding to the detected destination.